Friday, August 9, 2019

Green jewel scarab beetle in epoxy resin















Tools and materials I propose:


I found this beetle dead on the street. It kind of inspired me to dip it in resin and make something with it on the woodturning lathe. So, I glued it with epoxy on a scrap piece of beech with some wood savings. This kept it from floating in the resin. I enjoyed this project so much, that I think I am gonna make a series of similar projects with different insect species!

The scrap beech piece was from another woodturning project, so it already fitted my chuck jaws. I cut the plastic from an old bottle and wrapped it around my piece with transparent tape. I sealed it with hot glue. And my mold was ready.

Next I mixed some slow setting clear resin and casted it into the mold. I degassed the resin in my vacuum chamber a few times, to remove as many bubbles as I could. 

And after about three days, my blank was ready. Resin seems to turn really nicely with scrapers. So I did most of my shaping with my round scraper. To shape the wooden part I used a spindle gouge, a skew chisel and my knife shaped parting tool.

I sanded the piece beginning with 100grit. At 500 I started wet sanding with water until 1000grit. I then moved to polishing with my micro mesh sanding pads. 

I parted the piece off the lathe and sanded the bottom using a sanding adapter on the lathe. 

I then buffed the piece using my polishing wheels. I used the two finer wheels, because micro mesh had created a really clear surface. 

And my little beetle was ready! I really enjoyed this project although it was relatively simple! Anyway I hope you liked it because that was it, see you soon with a new project video!


Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

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