I've just finished a coffee table for my son's first off-campus residence. The primary reason for the table is to serve as a canvas for a design to be created using beer caps that I've been saving for years. (OK, decades. I have a lot of beer caps... more than he'll use for this little table.) The plan is to embed the bottle caps in epoxy. To that end, I recessed the plywood table top about 3/8" so that the finished surface will be at the top of the surrounding frame. He'll glue the bottle caps down, then cover them with the hi-build epoxy.
Two questions:
First, does anyone have experience with using a hi-build epoxy finish in this way?... if so, do you have any advice for techniques or things to watch for?
Second has to do with finishing everything beyond the table top. I've had in mind that we'd just use the epoxy to finish the rest of the western red cedar frame and the lower plywood shelf. Is that a reasonable idea?... does the cedar require any special preparation?... or will it take the epoxy directly?
