Glaze Coat Finish & Remove A Faux Tray ~ How To!

What's up buttercups!  First off, just so ya know, I've been playing around with the "look" of my blog lately. Have you noticed?  New header and all that jazz!   Things may look a little different every time you pop in, until I work out exactly how I want it.  Just trying to clean things up a bit. How do you like it so far?

Ok, now onto the coffee table, and the Glaze Coat.  This is kind of a two part post.  One, how to beat the heck out of a coffee table then patch it up, and two, how to use Glaze coat.  It's gonna be a long one.

To refresh your memory, here was the coffee table to start. (See the full before and after post here.)

It had an attached faux tray on the top.  Wasn't a fan of that, so I took a hammer to it.

 I'm gonna speed through the "how to take a faux tray top off a table" part, because if you don't have one you could probably care less! ~ HA  and if you do have one, you'll still get the picture.

It was glued and screwed down. The way the table was constructed, I couldn't get to the screws underneath the table, so a hammer was the only way to go, without taking the entire table apart.

That left screws to contend with!

I used a drill bit to drill around the screws so I could pull them out through the top with a pair of pliers.

Then I patched the holes with wood filler.

So there ya go.  That's all you really need to do to remove unwanted details from your furniture.

Then I sanded the heck out of the table, applied Kilz spray primer, then painted it white.

The black strips are actually black silk ribbon.  I could have just painted those on, but I had the ribbon so I thought what the heck, it will save me some time and the Glaze coat will seal it all in. (Used Modge Podge glue to attach the ribbon to the table.)

Now for the Glaze Coat.  This was the scary part.... at first.  I didn't know what to expect and had visions of epoxy resin everywhere, the table stuck to the floor, me stuck to the table... you get the picture.  Fortunately none of that happened!

You can pick this stuff up at Lowe's.  Alright first off, read the instructions that come inside the box.  That's important.  It needs to be mixed and stirred for several minutes.  

Make sure what ever you are working on is level, as in, sitting on a level floor, level.  I did not read the instructions that came inside the box! (I just looked at the mixing steps on the box ~ dope)  and this is what happened on my first attempt.

But I will say that I'm glad it happened that way because now I have way more information to share with you on how to avoid it and how to fix it! 

Apply it just like the instructions say, 

pour it in the middle and spread it out to the edges.  

The most important part is mixing enough... but not too much!!  You can pour a coat up to 1/8" thick, but the measurements on the back of the box are for 1/16" thick coatings (half as thick as you could actually go).  Per the box, 1 quart covers 9 sq ft at 1/16" thickness.   So you could actually use 2 quarts per 9 sq ft, but that would be your max thickness at 1/8". Make sense?  My table was 12 sq ft so I used a quart and a half, knowing the thickness of my coating would be slightly more than 1/16" but less than 1/8" so I was good.

Ok, now for what the instructions DON'T SAY. (well they do say some of this but still!)

You really should have a heat gun!

(You can pick one up at Lowe's for about $20.00 ish)

• 1.  You can create a barrier with painters tape to stop the resin from spilling over the sides.
• 2.  You can leave the tape on the edge until the epoxy resin is completely cured and it will still come off.
• 3.  You can pour a second (third, fourth...) coat about 6 to 8 hours after the previous coat.
• 4.  Pouring a thick enough second coat will fix the ripples and/or level out problems in the previous coat!
• 5.  A heat gun is your best friend to get the air bubbles out, and move the epoxy around ever so slightly to help level it out.
• 6.  Don't hold the heat gun too close, you don't need too!
• 7.  You can sand off any drips once it's cured.
• 8.  You can sand the top edge of the hardened epoxy resin to make the edges of the table smooth.
• 9.  You can use acetone to wipe over the cured surface and sanded areas to make it all pretty.
• 10. You really MUST cover it with plastic to keep dust off. (It takes a long time to dry, I used a plastic drop cloth)
• 11. It doesn't dry instantly, you've got a good 20 mins.
• 12. It doesn't feel as sticky as you might think in the beginning.
• 13.  If you have sticky areas after the proper drying time, hit them with your heat gun.  They will go bye bye.
• 14. You're going to get bubbles and blowing on them isn't gonna cut it!  Hit them with a heat gun.
• 15.  They say use a plastic spreader to spread the epoxy resin out, which I did this past time, but, I'm thinking a notched trowel would work better.  I haven't tried that yet but I'm going too and I'll let you know how it works out.

I will say, START WITH SOMETHING SMALL to get a feel for it.  You can keep applying coat after coat to fix any errors you make when applying it to large areas, but that can get expensive.  So do something small so you know what to expect, before you dive into to a large top.

Alright! Hope all that helps! 

Good luck! and DON'T BE SCARED.

But know that practice makes perfect with this stuff!

Smiles!

Sammy,

~Renew Redo~