now that we've got these burls back even thoughÂ
they've went through the kiln it most likely means  they're okay to work with but it doesn't 100Â
mean that they are dry so that's what we have  this for uh it's a moisture meter we're shootingÂ
for less than seven percent it is ideal with this  stuff so there's two kinds of materials that weÂ
like to use on the bottom of our table which you  can see here this is HDPE which stands for highÂ
density polyethylene basically it's just plastic  and it has a shiny surface and it's not going toÂ
allow the epoxy to stick and then for the sides we  actually, just use these borders it's MDF of courseÂ
you can't see the MDF but there is MDF underneath  the tape you can kind of see it there and thenÂ
we just coated the whole thing in tuck tape you  can see there tuck tape is usually only sold inÂ
canada so if you can't find it where you live  you're looking for sheathing tape that is theÂ
type of tape tuck tape is just the brand name  so it's either HDPE or tuck tape so standing or sitting in front of me and Sagar right now is a table that we madeÂ
it was our second ever resin cast table and it  failed there's a huge crack and separationÂ
in this edge now the good part about this is  we know exactly why this happened we sealed theÂ
edges on this slab and we also didn't take any  of the bark off like especially up here you canÂ
see lots and lots of bark still left underneath  so a couple things two things basically thatÂ
screwed us up is the that by sealing the edge  you prevent the epoxy from soaking into theÂ
wood and you just get this plastic on plastic  on now we can't stress this enough like we sayÂ
this all the time and we still see people sealing  edges like we get you get emails probably allÂ
the time yeah yeah people saying like oh should  i seal the edge or not and the the answer is noÂ
like I'm even in Facebook groups like epoxy resin and facebook groups many people recommending itÂ
i'm going to post this video on there to try and  help you guys out but sealingÂ
the edge will make it separate and then the  the bark that we left on only made things worseÂ
and that's because the epoxy bonds to the bark  and then the only thing holding it all together isÂ
the bond between the bark and the wood the reason that we debark the slabs is to get a better bondÂ
if you are to leave the bark on your live edge  slaps when you do the pour essentially what isÂ
happening is the epoxy is bonding to the bark  and the only thing holding everything together isÂ
the bond between the bark and the piece of wood so  not very strong and it's not going to hold upÂ
for you know a long-term piece of furniture  now when we first started making theseÂ
tables there wasn't really anyone doing it  so we didn't know this now i wanted to do a pourÂ
i think it was the second resin pour we ever did  and i wanted to leave the bark on so i did i didÂ
the pour it cured it looked awesome uh but then  i took it out of the mold and when i went to pushÂ
it through the planer it went in as one piece and  came out as three pieces there was the pieceÂ
of epoxy with two pieces of bark stuck on the  outside and then there was my live edge slabs so iÂ
thought i'd gotten smarter and we did another pour  where we took the bark off and same thing pouredÂ
the epoxy took it out of the mold stuck it in the  planer except it broke in three pieces again nowÂ
this time instead of there being all the bark on  the epoxy there's just this thin little brownÂ
layer which is the cambium layer of the tree  and that's why we use the wire wheel to get ridÂ
of that little thin layer so first we go with  just chisels or a draw knife to peel the bark offÂ
and then it's a wire wheel to open up those pores  of the wood and give you a better bond so it's actually quite a bit of effort we have to go to to eliminate the bubbles first of all you need to make sure you're using the right kind of epoxy you need to be using a thick casting epoxy so we had our own specific product formulated our black forest deep resin that actually allows us to pour thick and have the bubbles release on their own  and then even on top of that the best way toÂ
eliminate the bubbles is to cool your resin  while it cures because that's going to give timeÂ
for all those bubbles to come up to the surface  the chemical reaction of the epoxyÂ
it is an exothermic chemical reaction  which means it produces heat but it also heat alsoÂ
acts as a catalyst to the chemical reaction so the  more heat you have the quicker it will cure andÂ
the less heat you have the slower it will cure so  we like to keep our room at usually honestly aboutÂ
16 or 17 degrees celsius so we just have this unit  here and it's really simple for us we turn it onÂ
set it to 16 and then when we are doing a pour  we don't put it on the energy saver because it'llÂ
turn off so we'll just go to the cool mode then  it'll stay on and it gets nice and cold in thisÂ
room but the reason this works especially good  is because underneath those HDPE sheets on ourÂ
pouring tables is aluminum so the aluminum gets  really cold and it just helps pull all the excessÂ
heat away preventing it from curing too quickly
