June 2022

I Try The Viral EPOXY Table with an ICE Rink River!

Growing up in Pittsburgh I've pretty much been a hockey fan my entire life. We've been fortunate to watch not one, not two, not three, not four, but five Stanley Cup wins come through the city of Pittsburgh. Since it's NHL playoff season right now, there’s no better time to try a hockey-inspired viral epoxy trend. There's an account on Instagram called Backyard Resin and they did this really cool-looking ice rink in a river table idea. The rest of the team and I thought it was cool as hell so we're going to try it! I don't know how this thing is going to turn out, but I do want to give this project away to one of you guys! All you have to do is subscribe to my YouTube channel and stick around till the end of the video where I tell you how to enter to win!

How I Created The Viral Epoxy Table

Watch the end of the video to see how you can win this Pittsburgh Penguins viral epoxy project

Sanding down the torched oak.

I got started on the viral epoxy hockey table by cutting up some nice oak slabs I found in the shop. I cut the oak slabs in half for the live edge river, and then I trimmed until I liked the shape of the river. Once I was satisfied with the shape, I torched the panels outside of the Dream Shop with a flamethrower.

With the wood ready to go, it was time to get started with the epoxy. The first epoxy step is to cover the torched wood with tabletop epoxy. This kind of epoxy is OK to spread around with your hands, you just have to be super careful not to apply too much pressure. After that, I carefully brushed the epoxy on the live edge of the wood.

When the tabletop epoxy dried, I got started on the ice rink part of the project by clamping down the epoxy-covered oak slabs and pouring the white epoxy in between the slabs. I was pretty impressed with the color—it looked just like ice! The next day when the “ice” was dry, Sam got started on the decals for the ice rink which also turned out pretty cool. Then, we went ahead and spread another layer of clear epoxy over the decals.

To really take this project to the next level, I got some authentic gear from the Pittsburgh Penguins to use as a part of this project. We settled on using some of Sidney Crosby’s blades and a few game pucks to add some more visual interest to the project. Then, after a few more layers of epoxy and a few more added details we had our finished project ready to go. If yinz wanna see how it turned out and find out how to enter to win this custom viral epoxy project, you can watch the full video here!

Tools & Materials Used

Find out what I used to turn a few slabs of wood and some old hockey equipment into a pretty sweet display piece

Check out these decals!

To get started on the project, I used a flamethrower to torch the oak slabs—do not try this at home unless you have experience and a safe area to torch the wood. For all of the epoxy, I used TotalBoat products for both the tabletop and clear epoxy pours. Sam used the Cricut to create all of the decals which added some realism to the project. The decals were super easy to make and ended up looking amazing in the finished product. I also have to give a shout-out to the equipment manager for the Penguins who hooked me up with some of the old blades and pucks we used in the project. To finish the project, I used both a wet sander and a dry sander to get all of the remaining bubbles out of the epoxy. It turned out slightly above average if I do say so myself. If you want to enter to win this custom viral epoxy project, watch until the end of the video!