Guitar and Table Creations Claim Top Woodcraft Resin Contest Prizes

Max Shen

Max’s “Coastline Telecaster Guitar” features pearlescent resin inlays, a California Ash burl body, a Walnut neck and a Rosewood fretboard.

“I’ve been working on resin projects since 2018,” Max shared in an email interview.

Regarding the prize-winning guitar build, Max said, “I was experimenting with uncommon guitar building techniques. The main body was primarily cut on a CNC router rather than a bandsaw, and the fretboard was laser cut instead of using a fretsaw, which took a few tries to get right.”

David Ison

“I have only been using epoxy for about a year,” David explained, “and this was my second epoxy coffee table. This piece was a gift to my girlfriend Amy.”

The material used for the top was an air-dried slab of Black Walnut, which David split into halves and then glued the Walnut lumber together to achieve the thickness of stock that he needed in order to be able to bandsaw out the curved legs.

David created the1-1/2"-thick tabletop in four epoxy pours. When the resin got to almost the consistency of peanut butter, he created the swirls and designs in the resin by dragging a paint mixing stick throughout the pour. Then he filled the rest of the void between the slabs to a flush state, using deep pour epoxy, while the first pour was still tacky.

David brushed on a seal coat, followed by a flood coat that he poured on and troweled over the surface. He used a heat gun to remove bubbles during curing, and then finished the table’s legs and skirt with spray lacquer.

George N. Partal, MD

George created this 12" by 9" “Magical Pearl” Vase from a locally harvested Cherry burl that was dried in a home-made kiln for a couple of months and then turned on a lathe to a roughly cylindrical shape to expose voids and bark inclusions. After removing the bark, George surrounded the Cherry burl with flexible plastic sheeting to form a container to hold the hot liquid resin. He mixed the resin with colored mica powder and poured the mixture around the burl, trying to control the color blends as much as possible. The burl/resin material was then cast under pressure to collapse the bubbles and left overnight to form a solid block ready for turning.

The wall of this vase is less than 1/8" thick. Accents are copper inlay. It is finished with sanding sealer and multiple layers of oil/varnish buffed to a "glass-like" mirror chatoyance. Not counting the drying time, George said the process took about a week.

George has been doing resin casting for the past 5 or 6 years.

Tim Terras

Tim used dead-standing Big Basin Sagebrush to create the eggs in his prize-winning “A Nest of Dragon Eggs.”

“This type of sagebrush grows 7 to 8 feet tall and lives for over 100+ years,” Tim explained.

Tim peeled the bark off the sagebrush, made a mold, and then poured the resin (a deep pour) over the sage in the mold. Next he put the material in a pressure pot and left it for 24 hours at 50 PSI. After removing the sagebrush/resin piece from the mold, Tim turned it on a lathe to create the Dragon Egg shape.

A full-time woodturner, Tim began working with resin in early 2019. 

Chris Yacoub

To create his “Knife” entry, Chris etched an Aluminum Honeycomb Core to degrease it and then cast it with resin, using a combination of dyes and powders. The newly cast material was then cured under pressure to remove bubbles, and the knife scales were cut out on a CNC machine, sanded and buffed. Scales were then mounted on a knife.