LET'S TALK ABOUT RESIN TABLES!
This time, we’re going to be talking about one of the hottest trends in woodworking right now- the resin table. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, a resin table is some arrangement of wood with epoxy resin poured in between to make it look like a body of water (typically). We decided to flex a bit and show you some of our favorite woodworkers’ tables that feature our wood. I’ll also talk a bit about the different styles as we encounter them.
Here’s an Oregon Black Walnut table made by Bricker & Beam, out of Columbia, SC. This table also features tinted black epoxy in the middle, as a single slab is split in two and flipped inward to create a “river”.
Black Forest Wood Co. out of Calgary, Alberta makes some amazing tables- here’s one with our walnut and a beautiful opalescent blue streak right down the center. Look at that trestle base!
One of our favorite customers is Cameron at Blacktail Studio, who’s based right here in Portland, Oregon. If you’ve never seen Cam’s work, he makes some gorgeous furniture out of our wood. Here is his “Columbia” table, made to evoke images of the Columbia River – the border between Oregon and Washington state.
Here’s another one from Blacktail – this one was made from English walnut. He also taught an epoxy resin class in our shop, where this table was created.
Finally, we’re looking at Kristopher Kirkpatrick. Kris makes stunning tables in his California-based studio. Here’s one made of maple burl and pale blue resin, meant to evoke images of a tropical canal.
This next table (or tables, rather) by Kris is really cool – he took another piece of burly big leaf maple, cut it into thirds, and made a table triptych.
That’s just a smattering of the popular resin table styles right now. Personally, I think the resin table serves a couple of purposes. It’s a way to use wood you traditionally wouldn’t use in a table build because of its’ odd shape, or size, or stability. It’s also a bit of a blank canvas, creatively speaking – you can use epoxy as much or as little as you want for your final design. You can arrange pieces for a simple “river” down the middle, or as “islands” in the corners and center, or even creating an “archipelago” from a rounded branchout or burl. You can dye your epoxy, color it with metallic powder, or use crushed up minerals like turquoise to add accents to your final piece. I’ve even seen tables with embedded LED lighting inside the epoxy, which can add a real unique (yet functional) accent.
Thanks for taking the time to check out some of the amazing furniture these talented woodworkers make! I hope we’ve inspired you to try your own resin table. Just remember to watch out for leaks!