Can you Plane Epoxy Resin?
Short answer, yes you can. Read on for how I did it so you can avoid my mistakes.
I am building a charcuterie board from some beautiful walnut I milled from a downed tree a few years ago. The wood had been sitting on the ground for a few of years before the man whom I got it from put the ad out on Craigslist and in those years the logs had either rotted partially away or checked pretty badly (checks are cracks at the end of a board caused by the drying process, especially when improperly dried). If I wanted to use this wood for furniture it would be mostly unusable, but in a charcuterie board the checking isn’t an issue and can be turned into a nice feature.
To start, a little about my epoxy process. I start by planing my boards to create a nice smooth surface. That way I know where all the knots and cracks are. Then I prepare the underside and edges by covering any through cracks or knots with plastic packing tape. This is just the standard cheap clear stuff which works just fine.
In walnut especially I like to use black epoxy. Black isn’t too noticeable and can blend nicely with the dark woodgrain of the walnut wood. I started my process by mixing up some Total Boat Epoxy, I would recommend their deep pour for filling cracks but I only had tabletop which works just fine. Tabletop epoxy is thicker and dries faster. The thickness means it doesn’t sink down into the cracks as well and the faster drying means it dries hotter which can lead to cracking in deeper pours but I’ve found as long as the crack is small then the heat buildup doesn’t matter too much. The thickness does and requires more pinhole filling, but I’ll get to that later. After adding the right amounts of two part epoxy I also add Minwax ebony stain to turn it black. I’m not sure that this is the right thing to do, but it certainly has worked for me in the past with nice, consistent results so there’s no issue color matching between pours.
Then it’s a simple matter of filling cracks and knots and letting the epoxy cure over night.
The Planing Process
Now what you came here for, is it possible to run the above board through the planer with? I checked online and it seemed like it would be fine based on a few forums, but my epoxy, even though it was dry and had sat for about 16 hours was still a little soft. I could dent it with my fingernail still. Once epoxy is cured it will be much harder but I had things to do and didn’t want to wait so I fired up my Dewalt DW735 and ran the board through.
I started with a light pass, just barely skimming the epoxy. That way if it was going to chip out it would hopefully be shallow enough that I could stop and wait for the epoxy to cure before continuing, but it was fine. I kept on planing until I hit wood and the result was great. The epoxy under the top layer was much harder. I only had a small section where I need to come back and fill some pinholes (that’s what I get for using tabletop where deep pour was needed).
Now I know you can run a board with epoxy in it through a planer without issues and you don’t even have to wait for the epoxy to fully cure. My example needs a little filler and some sanding. Let me know in the comments if you found this useful, have other tips, or have questions for me.
Originally published 5/21/2022 and updated 9/9/2022
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