I want to make a desk top similar to this only with a big 2 inch thick maple slab in the middle. One of the “hip” things to do is what’s called a river pour. Google it. But I don’t want a river. Instead I want to keep the slab in one pieces and pour a marble looking epoxy around it and then a clear over the top of it all.
i was just pulling your leg. 
but on a more serious note: the maple slab poured in, or removable?
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Not removable at all. When done it would be just one big rectangle of wood and epoxy. I have had this big 2" thick slab of western maple (no where near the same beast as eastern hard maple but still pretty just softer ad wood goes) that is about 4.5 feet long and 2 feet wide. Live edge on two sides. It’s a beautiful piece if wood with quite a bit of figure. I can’t remember when I bought it but at least 10 years ago. Just sitting there in my shop waiting for inspiration. I think it has arrived. I want to do a dark green and white marble epoxy surrounding the maple slab. Then a nice clear over it all. The slab itself weighs, I am guessing, about 75 pounds. It’s heavy. With epoxy it probably would be a 100 pounds. Then want to make the base out of some sort of iron that is rusted.
Have I ever mentioned I love wood. I tend to collect it. I see a cool piece of wood I buy it without any clue what I would ever make with it. This is the case with this maple slab.
One thing can be said about the epoxy revolution. It takes otherwise unusable but cool wood and makes it useful. Whether just using clear epoxy to full cracks and voids in wood to “stabilize it” or using complimentary colors or exotic contrasting colors, epoxy has been a God send to wood working. It mills, sands, and turns much like hardwood does. It sand and buffs to a mirror finish. And now that there are a bunch of companies making epoxy specifically for wood working all of its draw backs have been eliminated.
If you don’t know about epoxy its finicky. Some epoxy is thermolitoc meaning it reacts to heat and if you apply heat it will flash cure. Other epoxy is less thermolitic (all epoxy reacts to heat no matter what anyone says). So some epoxy has to be poured very thin. To deep and it gets thermal cracks. But some epoxy does not produce as much heat when it cures and can be poured much deeper. Some epoxy when heat is applied with flash cure. Other epoxies you use heat to eliminate air bubbles and it won’t flash cure. Some epoxy sets fast and you have little time to work with it. Other epoxies take as much as a day to set and you can put it in a vacuum pot and suck the air out of it before it cures.
I say all this to say that it has come a long way and it has really opened up its practical application in wood working. From just making rotting fractured nasty wood usable to being an major part of the over all artistic effect.
ah, now i think, i understand.
the wood will be part of the epoxy surface, being in it.
i thought, you wanted it as surface to cut upon.
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It’s a marriage. A dismilar marriage. A marriage of dismilar materials. The natural wood and man made epoxy. Does that make sense? A riot of material, wood, metal, epoxy. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe NONES cup of tea. But I’m not gonna make it for anyone else. I love wood, metal, and man made materials. This would be my personal expression of that. And DAMN THE TORPEDOES.
there is what Devin was talking about. I saw a video yesterday where a guy too an irregular shaped log cut off a bunch of 2”slices then proceeded to cut and fit the odd shaped round using a band saw to puzzle piece them together epoxy the top and joints into a beautiful square table. Using some wood that would probably get thrown away as unuseable
That’s a great example of a river pour. You take a live edge slab and cut it down the middle and reverse the pieces and pour epoxy in the center. They are beautiful. But for that slab of maple I do not want to make a river like that. I want to keep it one pieces and surround it in epoxy.
I’ve been wanting to do epoxy countertops for my mom’s kitchen, but am paranoid I’m just going to make a huge mess.
I’m a bit jealous of you guys with all the railway spikes and nails etc… A friend of mine does big pours and we talk about all the neat stuff you can imbed into a river pour.
…and I had an old HO or N scale…
…or gaming pieces…
…or wanted a glowing LED EFFECT
Edit: these are not his. We are talking about what might get imbedded in his next dining table.
I saw a “canal” pour last year with a container ship wedged between the two sides, representing the Evergiven in the Suez. Lots of fun I think.
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Great job on the epoxy countertops, Devon. Although I do like the color scheme, I hope it doesn’t suck up too much light in the kitchen 
Don’t devon too long on the maple/epoxy desktop, we are all getting older and I would love to see what you come up with.
I wonder if you could imbed family photos in a river table, that would be pretty neat.
No reason. Mask the cabinets and then drape lots of plastic. By nature it is messy but you just have to catch the mess. It’s really an easy process. Nothing to be intimated by.
As long as the epoxy doesn’t ruin them I would think you could. I’d do a test piece first and see if there is any issue.
Well, my electrician skills were proven to be on an Amateur level today. Installing an outdoor lamp with surface mount metal conduit, I must have pinched the hot wire when putting the cover on a corner. When I threw the switch to test I got fireworks!
On the bright side, I proved my conduit has a solid ground!
Now I need to open the source box and pull a new black wire 
i hope, you pull THREE new wires.
Good call Korm. I’ll do that.
How did the tin hat react to the sparks ?
Jon,
I am not being mean here and say this with all the respect in the world. Hire an electrician to do your new panel. . . 
The last counter was poured. But it’s really to long to get a good picture of. It came out about like the others. Bit not a total success. I have some bubbles I missed and had a blow out on the sink area and got epoxy in the sink. It was soft enough still to clean up the sink with acetone. But I do have some blemishes in the epoxy that will need to be dealt with. A matter of sanding. And then polishing but not catastrophic.