For some time I have wanted to finish a small piece (ornament) with 2 part Epoxy. I gives a great luster with depth. My first experiments were using 2 part 5 minute epoxy. It didn't do too bad, but I quickly found out that I'd better be set up to do the job BEFORE mixing the epoxy. The project and epoxy must also be at room temp. My lathe does not have RPM control that goes low enouogh and is located in my garage that can drop to 50 degrees. After a dry run I did get some promising results. However it did harden to  enough to foil my attempt. I purchased some 30 minute epoxy from Amazon.  There again I learned another property of epoxy. It does begin to harden enough in the first 7 minutes to prevent flow. Which makes touch up a bit tricky.  Just when I though I messed up, I discovered that the epoxy does actually flow after 7 minutes.......but very slow. I allowed the piece to turn the full 30 minutes and it did even the the surface.

  The picture shows my set up and the final piece. As you can see, it is still in the drill,  It is set up, but far from being hard. I had to let it set overnight in the drill to accomplish a tack free surface.

 

I like it and will use it again. I'm sure I will learn more..................like use a small paddle instead of a brush, the epoxy will pull loose hairs from the brush. Most chucks will not close enough to take a small shaft, you can see my aux tiny chuck is chucked up. The speed control is my tiny clamp.

Edited March 18, 20233 yr by Ron Altier

Thanks for the information, Ron!

A lot of knowledge packed into that post Ron, thanks for sharing it

This may lead to a whole new category of ornamebts,