Wood & Resin Triptych (Wall Art)

Paul Jenkins
by Paul Jenkins
5 Materials
$150
1 Week
Medium
I've had a small timber slab kicking around for a few years that wasn't the right size for furniture, so I decided to make some artwork from it.
For more detail, checkout the video.
Checkout the video for more details
Finished shot first.
While I could have used the weird fork-line end, ultimately it would cost me more thickness and a whole heap more epoxy.  I knocked those bits off with with a jigsaw.
Then went over to the bandsaw to rip the slab in half. You could use the jigsaw to do the ripping too, but my battery went flat. Using a circular saw would mean you wouldn't need a jointer or handplane to square up the cut edges.
I wanted everything to be as flat and square as possible, so a trip to the jointer..
...and thicknesser made it come up pretty. If you do have a planer (thicknesser), get those two slab halves even and cleaned up. If you don't, a router slab flattening jig is the way to go.
If you've never seen banksia nuts, they're pretty huge. When they're exposed to the extreme heat of bush fire, the seed pods burst open, flinging seeds far away.
In its full size, a banksia nut isn't particularly pretty or easy to use.


My face for scale. icon
Using a bandsaw, you can fairly safely slice them up creating "slabs" of banksia nuts. These have very interesting textures.


The other fillings - leaves and smaller gum nuts - don't need any prep, other than removing any dirt and bugs.
For the form to contain the epoxy (so I didn't glue the artwork to my bench), I used melamine. Cheap, & cheerful.
The melamine form just gets screwed together. The inside of the form also got waxed to help release the epoxy, though may not have been required.
Then the epoxy is poured from up high. This gives time/velocity for the bubbles to pop, or so I've read. This was done in multiple pourings, three in the end.
While the slab was one piece, I sanded everything up to 240 grit. This was basically to just get everything smooth and even.
Cutting the slab into three was pretty simple using a crosscut sled at the tablesaw. It smelled really interesting - the mix of huon pine (a very fragrant native timber), plastic epoxy smell, then gum leaves.
Then some finish (OSMO PolyX) was applied to the wood. Being something that lives on the wall, you don't need something all that heavy duty to protect it - shellac or boiled linseed oil would work just fine.


They are actually separated here, just pushed them together to make it easier to roll on the finish.


Before the finish there was wet sanding up to 12,000grit and use of Brasso (yes, brasso!) to really bring out the shine in the plastic, but I've run out of pictures I can add.
Suggested materials:
  • Melamine
  • Epoxy Resin
  • Gum Nuts & Gum Leaves
See all materials
Paul Jenkins
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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