Category Archives: Arts & Crafts
Rustic Wood Wall Art:
A Pinterest® Success Story
By Jenessa Hilger – GBI Marketing
If you’ve ever used Pinterest, then you know that it is filled with projects that give a false sense of confidence in your own artistic abilities. Hence, the wildly entertaining “Pinterest fails”. Mindlessly scrolling one day, when I probably should have been doing something productive, I stumbled across a rustic wood wall art piece. A little epoxy, some scrap wood, and I can build that. No problem.
How to Make a Wood & Epoxy Vase
By Ed Lewis
Cover Photo: One of Ed Lewis’s wood/epoxy turned vases.
In 1947, my parents took me to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for my first vacation. I was fascinated by a woodturner and resolved that I would one day learn the craft. In the early 1970s, I found an ancient used lathe in a flea market. I bought a box set of chisels at Sears and set out to learn the craft. I didn’t have a teacher and I made a lot of mistakes. Continue reading
Casting Epoxy
By Rachael Geerts – GBI Composites Materials Engineer
Casting epoxy is really catching on. Live edge tables with bright centers, clear coasters with stones, wood, or shells intricately placed, or even beautiful jewelry can be made with WEST SYSTEM Epoxy. With so many people venturing into using epoxy this way, I will address common questions about casting depth, colorants, bubble removal, and finishing. Continue reading
The Eat a Peach Tribute Guitar
A Marquetry Love Letter to the Allman Brothers
By James Macdonald
The design features my marquetry rendition of some of the original artwork by Wonder Graphics on the inside cover of their epic Eat a Peach album, released in 1972.
In the early days of my woodworking career, beginning in 1981, I spent time as a boatbuilder at Wood Boats, a restoration yard in Norwalk, Connecticut. From the first day of my job there I learned the importance of epoxy in all aspects of boatbuilding. Inspired by reading Mother Earth News, I moved to rural Maine, built my own home, and got a job at another boatshop (this one in a huge, defunct chicken barn) in Lincolnville, Maine. I started my own woodworking shop in 1988. Continue reading
Readers’ Projects, Issue 49
Packard Wagon Restoration
This is the Packard wagon I am redoing the wood on. Some of the original wood will be reused. I bleached all the wood before I varnished it so it will match. On the panels, I used 105 Resin and 207 Special Clear Hardener to epoxy the mahogany veneers to the steel door panels. I clamped them by vacuum bagging them. —Jeff Hobgood
Chris Craft Baby Runabout
by Daniel Laeyendecker
I designed this project by scaling down a Chris Craft runabout from pictures I found online.
Hull and Drive Assembly
I started with five rib frames and a center beam temporarily mounted upside-down on a workbench. I glued and stapled the ¼” x ¾” bead-and-cove pine strips to the ribs. Once all the strips were installed, I removed the staples and sanded the hull smooth for the heat-activated 2″ mahogany strips I’d apply later.
Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut
By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor
Cover Story, Epoxyworks 47, Fall 2018
Some years ago I had the curious idea of cutting a dried black walnut in half on a band saw. That first look at the exposed insides of the nut grabbed me as very unusual, even surreal and not at all what I expected. I decided to seal the cut surfaces in epoxy which made them look even more unusual. I’ve made many since and love to see the reaction from people looking at them for the first time. I’ve been told they look like brain scans, polished geodes, and ink blots. Continue reading
Creativity is Contagious, Pass It On…
By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor
My career at Gougeon Brothers is coming to an end. By the time you read this article, I will have moved on to new things, the things that retired people do such as travel, kayak, volunteer, read books, and tinker creatively in my shop.
There is a place inside each of us where creativity bubbles freely. Creativity is a gift that needs to be tapped into and shared with others to fully blossom into something beautiful. Tinkering has always been a creative outlet for me. I wonder why many of us seldom tap into it. Possibly we were embarrassed as a child after showing someone our creations. The emotional wounds we suffered early in life may cause us to stop sharing ideas and creating things. Continue reading
Readers’ Projects, Issue 47
Carrom Board
ABOVE: Suresh Kalavala of Galloway, Ohio built this waterproof Carrom game board. The frame is walnut, the corners are quilted maple and the game surface is Baltic birch plywood laser printed with a wide-format UV LED printer. He coated the surface with 8 coats of 105 Resin/207 Special Clear Hardener to protect the design. The resulting finish was actually too smooth and hard for optimum playing (The game involves flicking game pieces into the corner pockets), so he sanded it and added a layer of polyurethane to provide the correct texture. For details, visit diycarromboard.blogspot.com