Removing Epoxy from Wood the Easy Way
Wood has flaws. It is a natural material and there will be things like knots and cracks, especially when dealing with a slab.
One of the best ways to deal with these imperfections is to fill them and epoxy is a perfect solution.
The problem is epoxy is a pain to remove. It is brittle, prone to cracking and chipping when working, especially by hand. It takes forever to sand, especially because it clogs up sand paper quickly, stopping the paper from cutting and slowing progress even further. Luckily, there is a simple solution to this problem, heat. But before we dive into how to use heat to speed up the process, lets understand epoxy so you know why it works.
What is Epoxy
Epoxy is a two part mixture of resin and hardener. Mix the two up, pour the liquid where you want it and let it harden and cure, making a strong bond and durable filler.
The thing about plastics is, the stronger they are often the more brittle they are as well. Epoxy will cut and machine, but it will also chip. If your board is small enough you can send it through a planer no problem, but when working by hand that epoxy will not behave like wood at all.
The good news is you can make it flexible and less prone to cracking with the application of heat.
Epoxy, like most plastics, soften as they warm up. Anyone who has melted a plastic container in the dishwasher has learned this lesson.
Using Heat
The process is simple. Use a heat gun to warm the epoxy and your chisel. Once warm, slide the chisel under the epoxy and cut away the excess. If you tried this without the heat the epoxy will break right out of the crack you filled, but with the heat the epoxy slices easily.
Once removed, let the epoxy cool back down and hit it with a sander to smooth the surface and your done.
There is a downside. Large voids without adequate wood support on either side of the epoxy are difficult to use this technique. As the epoxy becomes soft your chisel will want to dive into the epoxy without the support of the wood surfaces to keep the chisel on the same plane. This can cause deep gouges and require more epoxy to fix the mistake.
In the case of large areas I recommend using a power sander. It’s unfortunate, but there’s really no other way to achieve consistent results.
