Category Archives: Arts & Crafts

Bronze, Glass, and Epoxy Sunflowers

By George Gish

My sunflower project began after I’d brought home from the farmer’s market three sunflowers planted in a small barrel. I placed the flowers on the patio outside my kitchen’s sliding glass door. Every time I sat at the kitchen table, I looked out at this bright splash of color and felt pleasantly relaxed. That happy, soothing view ended two days later when deer ate the sunflowers. I wanted my view back, but knew that buying more flowers would just provide another meal for the deer. I decided to re-create the flowers in something they couldn’t eat: glass and bronze. Continue reading →

Bubble-Free Casting in Knotholes and Cracks

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

Customers often ask us to recommend a WEST SYSTEM product for filling cracks and knotholes in wood. The best choice is 105 Resin and 207 Special Clear Hardener. Used properly, this product combination produces a strong, transparent casting. I will use large logs with huge voids to demonstrate the best practices for achieving a clear, bubble-free casting with 105/207. Continue reading →

Readers’ Projects, Issue 45

Reader Eric MacKeigan is a scroll cut artist. He cuts his signs on a scroll saw and then uses WEST SYSTEM Epoxy dyed with a little food coloring to fill the voids and create works of art. More of his work can be found at fretwoodmack.com. Continue reading →

Epoxy Bowls

By Joe Llewellyn

I am a woodturner working on a wood lathe making various round objects from bowls to bottle stoppers to pens. This includes epoxy bowls.

I started turning irregular pieces of wood like burls and became frustrated with all the defects in the rotten or punky wood, and the various holes that needed to be filled or stabilized in order to keep the piece together. I began using WEST SYSTEM 105 Resin and 207 Special Clear Hardener as recommended by the WEST SYSTEM technical advisors. Continue reading →

You Can Build It With Fiberglass

Cosplay Glass’s Fabricated Helmets and Props

By Clayton Woods

Using WEST SYSTEM Epoxy Resin and fiberglass products, I have created numerous helmets, props, and pieces of armor for costuming and cosplay. Cosplay means to dress up as a character from a book, movie, or video game. Employing unorthodox and oft times experimental methods, I have kept costs low and my creativity heightened.

Just about anything you dream up can be built with fiberglass. The only real challenge is to get a close initial shape. After that, you can add or remove material with relative ease. As it is impossible to hang fiberglass in the air, you just need something to put those initial layers on. Continue reading →

Marquetry: Fake It Until You Can Make It

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

Wood inlay marquetry has been around for a very long time, and I am always looking for different ways to use epoxy. I have learned that it is possible to use a laser jet printer with a clear transparency film to print an image, then transfer that image onto a substrate coated with WEST SYSTEM Epoxy, resulting in the look of marquetry without all the cutting, fitting and craftsmanship. (Inkjet printers do not work with this process because the ink does not transfer to the transparency film.) The image could be a picture of a wood inlay or whatever you can imagine. Here is the process I have found that works the best. Continue reading →

Boats as Art: The Sculptures of Larry Brown

As a career architect-sculptor, Larry Brown created a vocabulary of freeform shapes that bring a sense of naturally flowing, organic dimensionality to his art. Recently, he applied his methods to a municipal scale art project using recycled fiberglass boats. His goal was to make large fine art pieces and park scale sculptures. Continue reading →

Composite Materials Merit Badge

By Tom Dragone, PhD

In Epoxyworks #38, we published an article featuring two projects that met the requirements for the Boy Scout’s Composite Materials Merit Badge. Here, Tom Dragone tells us about two more projects completed by scouts in Troop 7369 from Chantilly, Virginia.

In 2006, the Boy Scouts of America created the Composite Materials merit badge for scouts to earn, to help them learn about the importance of composite materials and encourage them to consider careers in this field. Being an aerospace composites engineer as well as an active scouting advisor, I saw this as a natural opportunity to share my interest and experience in composite materials with the scouts in my troop. I developed a set of projects to help the scouts learn about composite materials and share them in the hope of getting more young men interested in this exciting field. Continue reading →

Balance

Nature inspires a beautiful custom floor lamp

By Alan Gurski

I have always been fascinated with balanced objects. Buildings, stones, sculpture—the more impossible a balanced item looks, the more intriguing. I have been thinking for a long time about how to bring almost unbelievable centers of gravity into objects that are practical. Continue reading →

G/Flex Weds Wood and Glass Crystal Goblets

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

David Black is a creative boat builder, woodworker and artisan living in San Diego California. He is very familiar with all the WEST SYSTEM Epoxy resin/hardener combinations but recently has become a huge fan of G/flex Epoxy.

I love it when David calls because his projects are always interesting. He pushes the envelope of how epoxy can be used. His clients appreciate him too for his creative abilities. Do you have an idea for a new table for your mega yacht? Call David. Need a unique teak deck for your yacht that no one else will even consider installing? Call David. Need someone to design and build a one-of-a-kind interior for your new motor coach? David is your guy. If it is out of the ordinary and it tests the realm of possibility and good reason, count him in. Continue reading →