# How to polish resin inlay (without messing everything else up)



## totalrewind (Mar 6, 2012)

I've done a couple of cutting board inlays with (food safe) resin.

My current process:
1) build cutting board
2) carve out design
3) add any inclusions and pour resin
4) sand surface flush
5) sand down to 1000 grit
6) buff surface with white and rouge
7) admire how great the inlay looks 
... and how awful the wood now looks :_(









I can't seem to get the compound residue out of the wood with either water or alcohol.
The only way I've found is to take a piece of 220 sandpaper and sand if off, but that gets fiddly around the design and more than once I've scratched the resin and had to start over.

I'm thinking… there's got to be a better way!

What am I missing?
How do you guys polish out your inlays and not mess the surrounding wood up?


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## MadMark (Jun 3, 2014)

Prefinish the wood surface and tape it off before cutting the inlay. Leave tape in place to protect the wood from the epoxy. Prefinish fills the pores of the wood so the epoxy and rouge can't. It's a sacrificial finish before the final finish schedule.


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## rtbrmb (Nov 11, 2011)

I have used this method on many of the gift boxes I have made & posted here.

I agree with everything that Madmark2 has already stated.

Did you use a RO sander to level off the excess epoxy? Sometimes the sandpaper will pick up epoxy residue (sanding dust) and will carry it everywhere else the sandpaper travels (on the parts of the cutting board where you don't want it. What I try to do is overfill the void with as little epoxy as possible and after it sets, use a chisel or scraper it get it as close as possible to the wood surface.

Then take a scrap board- maybe 3/4" wide and wrap it with sandpaper and get it even closer to the wood surface. Then I finish it with 220 (or 330) grit on my ROS, and sand the wood surface at the same time. I never take it past that high of a grit. In an area as small as we are dealing with, not sure you need to go any higher than that.

I hope this information helps.

Bill in MI (a fellow engineer)


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

+1, Finish and tape before cutting the inlay, though on a cutting board, that might not be an option?

Make sure that you are mixing your resin and hardener precisely to the correct proportions and don't try to work the resin until well after the stated cure time (not the set time).

Instead of the coarser grits of paper, I would start with a cabinet or even card scraper to carefully level. A very sharp block plane might work too. Then hand sand to higher grits. If you use a power sander, it can over heat the resin and cause problems.

What kind of wood did you use? Looks more alike a softwood than a hardwood typically used on cutting boards. Denser wood may work better too. Also, did you carve these by hand?


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## totalrewind (Mar 6, 2012)

Thanks everybody for your advice so far. I guess you're right. With the color resin it doesn't matter too much if I sand to high grit and polish. Next time I want to cast something in clear, I guess I'll go ahead and pre-finish according to your advice. (I'm assuming everyone is talking about a surface finish, not mineral oil though, right? )



> What kind of wood did you use? Looks more alike a softwood than a hardwood typically used on cutting boards. Denser wood may work better too. Also, did you carve these by hand?
> - Lazyman


Yes, that is only a poplar test piece, but I have had the same issues on oak boards.
(And, yes, hand-carved)


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## rtbrmb (Nov 11, 2011)

I use a sanding sealer, or shellac, for a prefinish.

Bill


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