Andrew D Thaler: This is not an article about epoxy river tables. I mean, it is. But it's not. But it is. Or maybe it isn't. www.southernfriedscience.com/this-is-not-...

This is not an article about epoxy river tables. I mean, it is. But it's not. But it is. Or maybe it isn't. www.southernfriedscience.com/this-is-not-...

I don't want that kind of river table, I want this kind: youtu.be/tcdSFndELgU?...

I Put a Waterfalls Terrarium in my Table (Custom Build)youtu.be I made the terrarium computer desk a few years ago (https://youtu.be/UrrQodJExb0), which is still one of my favorite projects to date. I had a lot of fun wit...

Oh my god yes

That’s gorgeous

I want this but don't feel like I have any of the necessary skills or tools

OOOHHH PRETTY. Also a home for the lil isopod buddies, maybe?

Or maybe this kind youtu.be/RagTZHPrn_o

Wine table of winding canal—an exciting by-product of watching TV!这是一个看电视看出来的曲水流觞桌！丨Liziqi Channelyoutu.be Please subscribe to 【李子柒 Liziqi 】Liziqi Channel on YouTube if you like my videos: https://goo.gl/nkjpSx #李子柒#Liziqi#lýtửthất#ChineseCuisine #ChineseFoodYes,...

that is fuckin' cool.

Seriously, why did you show me this? This is going to take me years to make one, but now I have to. A waterfall inside a table... a waterfall inside a table... must... craft...😆

That's so beautiful! I love it!

LOL of course its Serpa.

Every time I see a creator throwing buckets of resin around I think about how much work that term does instead of just talking about it as plastic

sadly (because I share your concerns about microplastics), I have seen a lot of these (and epoxy river bar tops) in restaurants 😔

Most of the restaurants near me remodeled during the live edge craze, so we have lots of very thick, very, very cupped tables from wood that hadn't fully dried before milling.

😔 beautiful essay, though—thank you!

oh no :(

I really hate the latest epoxy craze, I have seen so many viral videos with people making this huge epoxy lump of pretty stuff and then whittling it down to nothing.

This reply is actually about epoxy river tables but I get the point of the article, too. And it's important.

Even without the big blue hunks in the table, I think epoxy is the go-to coating for wood tables and bars in restaurants. And the other high protection wood finish, polyurethane, is basically plastic as well.

Thin layers of epoxy as a protective, durable, water resistant finish for heavily used furniture is what these kinds of epoxies are designed for. Deep pours are not.

I assume it’s better in terms of microplastics because they’re not putting the epoxy through a planer, but I also assume the issue still exists from the sanding and use.

Is Pine resin hardening also why mills who cheaped out on steel (e.g. the Enviva operations whistlebower) get torn up by Pine? Or is that a more direct pine-resin corrosion? In the spirit of revolutionary acts... I made a stairway. Newels, rails, nosings, cove, trim, all milled from rough stock.

I don't know anything about Enviva, but the resin doesn't start to cure until the tree is dead, so unless they're chewing through tons of salvage lumber from the 1950's, probably not. Those stairs are beautiful.

I guess Pitch eventually turns into Amber; though at ~20 years of operation they're probably dealing w/corrosion rather than erosion. Handrails were a learning experience, started with a single piece of 10/4. Installing the flat runs was fun, the rake was frustration and didn't go to plan.

omg that is gorgeous. you did a fantastic job.

My husband works at a sawmill, and builds live edge furniture, and I'm a content marketer, and your article speaks directly to both of us. His company (it's just him and the owner) has declined jobs for epoxy tables. I'm terrified of not being able to earn a living anymore.

this is a great article and also my first thought on seeing this was ewww epoxy, that is gonna look like shit sooner than y'all think...

everyone forgets how quickly things get scratched.

This but more that epoxy becomes brittle and yellows over time. It isn’t a material I am interested in or willing to use in any of my projects because it’s nasty, kinda dangerous and doesn’t decay gracefully.

"art epoxies" have gotten pretty advanced & there are non-yellowing ones. I'll confess i've wanted to play with the river-table concept, but have the "river" become more of a literal river in which to place my realistic miniature fish. So, a sculpture. Like this little guy, but with all its water 😺

Holy fuck that’s an amazing fish mini!!! You should do this! Maybe with a different technique though. Like maybe painting the river in? And then could place the minis in the gap? Am I making sense?

If you were thinking about encasing this beauty in clear epoxy it would make me cry ha ha

No matter what the packaging says, clear epoxy is ALWAYS going to yellow over time. You can add pigment to counteract it but it's still going to happen

some yellow a lot slower than others, yeah. But all the ones i sold (marine grade) start out already yellow

yay plastic!

Not looking forward to more LLM word salad, but enjoyed your take. My husband the carpenter completely and vociferously agrees with you on those epoxy river tables.

This is the same phenomenon as those burgers not made to be eaten but to ejaculate geysers molten cheese at the camera for social media, a person can get a very warped view of both what real burgers are like and what qualities real people want in their burgers if they just went by virality.

Urgh, I’ve never liked them. So shiny, so disrespectful to the characterful timber. Especially when the epoxy is dyed and pearlised / glittered. Ick.

So glad I'm not alone in this, I find the contrast between materials really jarring and also they're just a horrific waste of good wood.

The idea of taking good timber and embedding it in plastic (for this, but also wood turning people are guilty of it too) is just *yuck*.

Oh gods the resin turners, lthe whole point of resin is you can cast it into the shape you need, having to show videos of making stuff rather than just photos of the finished thing has ruined peoples minds.

And all that waste! And it’s cheating!

Resin isn't cheap either (and it's really nasty, the first time I used it I burned my mouth with the catalyst). It just looks so tacky, the whole point of craft is to get something that doesn't look mass produced but the making of them is just so mechanical, there's no love in it.

Isn’t epoxy carcinogenic if inhaled? Strikes me that turning it could be pretty harmful if you end up with very small shavings everywhere

this article is one hell of a rollercoaster ride

we like to keep you on your toes.

once again helping me change my mind about the eventual penny-tiled table I'd like to make (by not coating it in plastic resin) Great article.

only first learning what an epoxy river table is now

Oh Nick Lewis said something like this in passing in a video that had me thinking about this. Comment sections keep saying that those acoustic slat panels are overdone.. but who has them? No house I've ever been to has them, I've never seen them "in the wild" as you said..yet everyone's sick of them

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