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In this video, the creator is updating an older Formica counter top by covering it with epoxy. They walk through the prep work and then the epoxy application.
They note that any silicone used to seal a sink needs to be fully cleaned since epoxy will not stick to silicone.
For cracks or other damaged spots, the creator uses bondo to fill flaw. When filling it, it is slighly overfilled so the final sand will yield a perfectly flat surface.
Before pouring epoxy, they take a lot of care to cover the floor, walls, and cabinents with plastic. Sink cutouts are taped with the tap extending out of the cutout. This provides a dam that will allow a layer of epoxy to come right up to the edge of the sink cut out. If you didn't do this, then epoxy would drip into the sink cut out. Even with this,one should take create to cover the interior with plastic since the epoxy will possibly leak between the tape and the cutout, especially in areas where the cutout is rough or otherwise does not stick well to the tape.
Separate containers are measured for each countertop section, so that the epoxy depth can be carefully controlled. When covering a single space, the epoxy can be spread with a toothed scraper to help ensure an even distribution, but when covering multiple surfaces its better to have a carefully measured volume on each surface since transfering extra from one surface to another will be an absolute mess.
For these countertops, the creator poured a base color and spread this evenly with a foam roller. As he says, the foam roller is the only "lint free" roller. The roller does a nice job of pressing the epoxy against the counter surface.
After rolling the base coat, the surface is striped with a gold colored accent epoxy. Then a charcol color is misted onto the surface. The charchol is a mica powder mixed into 99% rubbing alchol and sprayed from a spray bottle. The alchol will float to the top of the epoxy and evaporate off, leaving no residual affect other than the mica powder that was mixed in the spray.
After spraying the countertop with the charchol colored mist, the gold veins are brushed to mix it with the base coat as well as add more branches. This gives it a stone like appearance.
Finally, a gold powder mixed in rubbing alchol is misted over the surface.
At this point, the counter tops are mostly done. The epoxy will slowly flow over the sides and drip. Now and then the creator is using a paint scraper to shear off these drips. He notes that he will do this several times while the epoxy sets up.
If you do not clean up these drips before the epoxy hardenes, it is a lot of work to cut or sand the drip bumps. These bumps will continue form until the epoxy cures, so its wise to scrap throughout the curing process so that you do not end up with any of them hardening since it takes so much work to remove them later.
At 14:24, they are pealing the tape off. Pealing tape should be done before the epoxy cures. On a top edge, it can be done while the epoxy is still wet. If pulled close to its setup time, it can leave a bumpy edge. But if pulled too early, the epoxy might flow onto the surface the tape was protecting.
Tape defining a bottom, non-visible edge, can be pulled a little later (still before a firm set). You will generally want to make sure this is done after any more drips might form unless you don't need to worry about drips landing on anything the tape (and likely attached plastic) are protecting.
They show a nice closeup of the finished counter tops at the end of the video. Its nice to see how the marbling ended up. When painting in the gold accent epoxy, it looked messy, but in the end, it makes a beautiful texture.