Aquaman Superhero Emblem - Wood and Resin

The Aquaman emblem/logo is yet another addition to the DC/Justice League portion of our superhero wall. The Aquaman emblem is admittedly a very simplistic and some might even say boring addition to the wall, but one that is most necessary considering the theme. This symbol, like all of the others up to this point, is made from a hardwood and resin.

Make sure you watch the video, as it shows a bit more of each of the steps.

The whole project starts with a block of wood. For this emblem we are using oak. The thickness does vary on some of our symbols, but we always try to keep the overall height and width to around 7 or 8 inches each way.

Something new we had tried with this emblem is laying down painters tape before adhering the paper template. We can't take credit for this though. It was suggested by a viewer on one of our other projects. I'm not sure who it was, but thank you. It has been a huge time saver.

After applying the tape we sprayed on a general purpose adhesive spray, waited about 15 seconds for it to become tacky and then pressed it down and smoothed it out. Once it had sat for a few minutes we drilled out a hole to receive the scroll saw blade.

Cutting out the emblem is pretty self-explanatory. If you've used a scroll saw before this will be a breeze. If you're not familiar with the scroll saw we suggest searching for sdgood on YouTube. He'll get you on the right track to scrolling in no time.

For this step, we only cut out the inner portion of the emblem.

The first thing we typically do before pouring is to add a piece of backing vinyl to the wood itself. This is just contact paper or drawer liner. This creates a seal and prevents resin from seeping through to a degree. More on that in the next step.

As with all of the past emblems, we used Famowood Glaze Coat. This is a bar top epoxy, but also works good in some other situations, such as this. If you want to know how to mix it and pour it, we suggest you check out the "What is the Cheapest Resin" video on our YouTube channel.

For this pour we added a gold-metallic acrylic paint as well as a little bit of yellow.

Pouring the resin is simple. The slower you pour the more you reduce the risk of bubbles. Now, while this will help prevent it, it won't solve the issue entirely. To help reduce them even more, we pass a lighter over top of the surface which will eliminate any bubbles that have risen to the surface. Once we had popped all of the bubbles we were able to pop, we added some weight to keep everything tight to the table surface to better seal the backing vinyl. Then we waited about 12 hours for it to cure.

Once the resin had cured we cut out the rest of the emblem; the outside. Simple enough.

Finally we sanded all of the rough edges from cutting and then added a single coat of tung oil to give it just a little bit of protection and a richer color. Then, as always, we added a couple of 3M poster tabs to the back and slapped it on the wall.

That's it. There isn't a whole lot involved in making one of these and they only take about 2 days to make; mostly because of waiting on the resin to cure. They're fun, simple and most importantly cheap to make, which checks a lot of boxes on our list.

We hope you enjoyed this DIY project and the video that goes along with it. If you have any questions or comments please let us know, we'd be more than happy to help you out. Thanks for checking out this Instructable.