Epoxy Resin Inlay Sign 

Once you routed your letter, mix a little epoxy resin and paint the inside and wait for that to dry, so when you come to fill them it won’t bleed. Looks really good.

Proper job Stuart, you're actually outstanding in your field 😉

Englishman here in the US (40 years!) ... nice to have an outstandingly knowledgeable expert (speaking "propper like wot I do") generously sharing his expertise in an entertaining and commonsensical manner. Love watching your videos ... well done and an enormous THANK YOU.

Sign maker is my side gig, what we normally do is if doing by hand and not CNC, we A4 print off whatever font and size (that we agree looks right with customer) and we spray adhesive on that and place onto face of the timber. Then like you did, outline the letters with knife, remove paper and sand off face to remove adhesive, then route them out and finish with Dremel to get a clean look. We normally go 5mm if recessed and 8mm if filling. You did a great job there.

All I want to say - your by a long shot my favourite RU-vid channel. Such a natural presenter and you just have my sense of humour. Keep up the good work

Here is my tip for gates. Always use a self closing latch. That way when your hands are full and the dog wants to come through you can just bump the gate with your backside and it will latch.

Speaking as a former signmaker of 25 years, you made a very nice job of that, especially by hand. That's the kind of thing I would do with a CNC router 'back in the day'.

Warm up the resin bottles in a bath of hot water then let it cool before using Stu, will help reduce bubbles. Plus painting on a thin coat of resin into your inlays, don’t let it fully cure then pour your full mix into the letters, again will help reduce bubbles👍👍

When the instructions say "stops drawing" or "no drawing", I think they mean that if you pull the stirrer out the resin isn't sticking to it. So a crude measure of viscosity, perhaps.

I did a gate number b4 i saw this video and used a black hot glue gun stick rather than epoxy and sanded back afterwards - good video as usual Stuart

Brilliant job on the gate & sign. You need to get yourself a workshop air filtration unit to get rid of the pesky airborne dust. They're a game changer

This vid is very aptly timed for me as I’ve got a few signs I want to build. Nice vid, gave me lots of great info.

That's a fantastic looking gate. You are a very talented man with lot's of skills. I would love to own a workshop like yours with all of your tools. Your videos are very educational. Thanks. 👍

Turned out very well! The edges looked perfect. A tip for getting out the air bubbles is to vibrate the wood - for example if you ran your orbital sander along the length of the vertical side of the wood for a bit

If you want more resin tips and tricks, you should get in touch with Evan and Katelyn. The resident resin masters of RU-vid.

Another cracking video Stuart I bought a Milescraft lettering kit years ago to make signs which I then paint in the letters and sand back the top. This has the same problem with bleed, I get around it by spraying with clear spray lacquer before painting to block the end grain. Yet again you’ve done something I hadn’t thought of, I’ll be trying out resin on the next one and following the trick of not totally filling the letters. Great idea!

Sitting in the sun drinking a cider watching Proper DIY... nice 🍺

I like your attention to detail

Good job as ever. Milliput putty is an alternative to liquid resin which although it is an epoxy too starts off much harder so won't bleed into the wood, this allows the letters to be raised above the surface and sanded down. Disadvantage is that you have to manually pack the milliput into each letter.

Great job. Not only the gate but the sign is fab too.

Excellent presentation. Answered question I hadn’t even thought about. Thank you.

love watching your videos from here in New Zealand , Most enjoyable

Brilliant vid as usual with lots of tips which are transferable. Surprising how a wife's idea translates into shed loads of effort! I got one of those 😊 Shhhh.... She's close 😉

Very enjoyable Stuart, as always, thanks for swinging education our way :) and be goodish :)

Great work, the process of figuring it out was great 👍🏼

Been watching your videos for ages and finally subbed. Hope to see more on the paddock & esp the creepy barn. Cheers.

Great job, Stuart.

That looks great 👍 trialling certainly makes sense 👌

Thanks for a very clear explanation and your thoughts on the best way to go. I particularly value it because my next project will be something similar.

Great result through loads of patience and trial and error.

I soooo look forward to your videos, absolutely love em

Really nice way to make the gate different, nice one Stuart. 👍😃

Looks brilliant Stuart - Not too Shabby, Not too Shabby at all!…………

I have to say good job, but I did have a wee giggle to my self when you put up the gate with the nice big paddock on it, I said to my wife, thank god that's on that gate how would you know that was the paddock 😂 I thought you were going to do a closed in fence and you wouldn't be able to see into the paddock my bad, love your videos 👍

Thats a crazy way to cut a lap joint.

Absolutely fantastic job your videos are always 👌 👏👏👏

Great video thanks Stuart. I’m going to try this.

Very, very impressive. You have encouraged me to have a go on lettering on a chest but I will char the insides of the letters and then sand.

Stuart, you've just moved up two divisions in the DIY leagues. Brilliant idea and when I build my gate, later this year, I'll be having a go putting the house name in resin. Brilliant job 👍🏻

Another enjoyable video ❤️. It’s always best to brush a light coat of resin to seal the pours and let it dry.

You really are a very clever man!

Lovely job! 👍 That looks really nice! Spotted Peter Millard's "Square Enough" in there too!

awesome result

Your sign looks awesome..

Great video Stuart - the gate looks great. Got me think about using resin now…….

Top quality as always

Another great vid Stuart. Just PVA bond and seal the routed parts to stop bleeding.

The gate looks great. I've just done a similar thing on the gate I built using your video but I used a laser engraver to create the voids for the numbers. Hopefully, I won't get any bleed. I did spray the voids before and I used finely ground charcoal as a pigment.

interesting that the wood stain ("paint") did not prevent capillary attraction sucking the resin into the end grain. Really useful discovery thanks for going first and finding that out. You have inspired me to remake out house name sign

Lucky you got this out on a Sunday, the universal bath night.

Good effort for a first try. Epoxy actually sands really easily. Just don't flood the whole surface, just a slight overfill and keep topping it up the first 15 minutes. Then you're ready for finish.

Proper diy at its best 👌

Brilliant job....

another time, perhaps a bit of shellac on the inside of the letters at the top would stop the resin bleed, and also maybe the water infusion. Any excess easily sanded off. Great video as always, clear, concise, no drama. Cheers!

Hi Stewart Evan here for the brambles that are blocking your way to the front entrance of the barn you can get a long peice of wood and stand on it to lower the thorns then you will be able to get into your barn.

Lot of effort but the end result looks good.

Nice job !!!!

Great job, really like the hat 👍😆

Don’t put on another diagonal brace Stuart. Half lap a horizontal member to match the fence.

Looks really good considering it was your first attempt, spruce must be one of the hardest woods to carve clean sharp edges into

For the bubbles in the resin… could you not have employed the orbital sander technique (minus the sandpaper) to vibrate the bubbles to the surface and then gentle passes with the heat gun…?

Excellent as always. Quick tip for getting the lettering onto the wood: print it mirrored on glossy paper with your laser printer, then put it on the wood and give it a quick iron. The heat from the iron will transfer the ink to the wood making it a nice template to follow when routing. I made a bunch of personalised coasters with names written in resin. They made fantastic wedding favours. Rather than pouring resin, I used Milliput epoxy putty. That would have worked well for you too and would have avoided the pigment issues you had.

I would have used the bandsaw for the lap joints Stuart 👍

I might do this myself. I've just thrown all the wife's crap out of our (my) shed, built a workbench, added more lighting and power and installed shelving for all my precious tools. Next is a sign saying "F**K OFF - PRIVATE! 😂

No, the DIY solution is not to leave it low by 1-2 mm... It is to apply a lacker on the inside of the letters, or even a 5-min epoxy. That way when you fill in with your white resin it doesn't even touch the wood and hence it not sucked up.

If you're feeling fancy, you could build a router sled to act like a diy thickness planer

Very nice 👌

Job well done. I'll leave that to my Son to do then i can shout at him if it goes to pot🤣

May I suggest another way to reduce/remove the formation of bubbles, which I employ when making silicone moulds. Having mixed the two parts, pour into your lettering, with a thread of liquid as thin as possible. The thinner the thread, the few bubbles that will be left in your mould/lettering.

Aldi do a heat gun full adjustable temperature and fan speed very useful piece of kit. Had mine for over 3 years now works fine

Another wonderful instructive video Stuart thank you very much indeed, and I do like the occasional comedy touches like tossing away the random sander dust bag. And did you have a bath this week? Hilarious. Nevertheless there’s a couple of things which have got me puzzled. Why have you not got a planer? I have a Makita and even though it was around £400 it was one of the best investment I ever made, it is so useful. Secondly you must have a very persuasive wife to convince you that you needed a sign on a see-through gate which was only waist height to indicate that on the other side was the paddock. Finally it was very refreshing to see you take on a job with materials and skills with which you were unfamiliar, since this is the situation most people find themselves in. By the way I had to make a garden gate and your video on that was brilliantly useful, thank you very much.

Loving the paddock videos stu , what happened to the other intro , both funny 😄 really like your videos gives me confidence to try stuff at home

Perhaps a hand plane? nice work and you have a lot of patience !

👍👍👍👍 Trend do a letter template set that's pretty good

Good video, one job I’ve never tried. I was thinking you could’ve used clear varnish water based to seal the letters then that would prevent bleed? I’d have taped a lot of the piece because Sod’s law is knock it over 😂

The gate is looking great, I would have thought, stain or paint the gate first, resin can be very tricky to work with, it will either go off too fast or not fast enough, I was a fibreglasser in another life many years ago, bedt regards from Australia.

Paused it at 10:25 and had to quickly minimise the screen when my wife came in to avoid an awkward conversation.

A creme brulee torch is good for removing bubbles from resin.

Vacuum chamber to get the bubbles out. I’m sure we’ve all got one of them in the shed

Are you using a new camera Stuart? The picture quality is incredibly sharp today. Or perhaps I've just got lucky with my broadband speed this evening!

Hey stu the bleed you had initially? If you had with hindsight would you have sealed end grain with varnish or something else before injecting resin even though you overcome bleed out love tips sir good work 💯👍🏻🇬🇧

Hmmm 🤔new gate 😆! new sign 😆!new paddock😜 so why not ?!!!!👍

Not for your average diyer. Unless you have a large enough worksop, the tools and the skill. But certainly looks good when finished

As long as you've not created completely frothy resin you can dispell the bubbles with a straw and gentle breaths. The heat of your breath and carbon dioxide (not sure of the science there) bursts them.

Don't worry about Bubbles, he's doing fine without Michael Jackson😂

Very nicely done, Stuart. Have you been able to pack in the day job to be a full time DIY 'Influencer' yet?

Stuart is that the cordless trend saw, I'm a withering about getting it but it gets mixed reviews and I trust your opinion

Nooice!

At least when you're 85 Stuart, you will know what lies beyond that gate as it's clearly marked.

👍

Would it still bleed into the wood when you had to paint it before pouring the resin though? There should no longer be any exposed end grain?

Is it possible the liquid pigment is too much and diluting the resin causing it to take longer to cure?

Would PVA glue stop the resin from seeping into the wood?

👍👍👍

When you moved from each letter did you get any over spill ?

Surely it should be called The (Airsoft) Range rather than the paddock! 🤣

The first resin trial looks quite semonic.

That the trouble with wife's they tend to have the best ideas

Worth having a look at the FixThisBuildThat RU-vid channel, he has some great epoxy project on his channel and plenty of tips and tricks for working with it. Great result on the gate, only problem is if you keep doing such good jobs the wife is just going to keep finding jobs for you! 🤣

Judging by that square Peter Millard's quality control seems to have gone down lately :)