Epoxy Mixing Table

I use a lot of epoxy glue in my various projects and am always scrambling to find something to mix the glue up on. I've used pieces of cardboard, ice cream container lids, bits of scrap wood and generally whatever I can find.

While I was making my Giant Pipe Cutters project I used some baking paper to mix the epoxy on. Later that day I had the idea of making a paper dispenser and mixing table in one. This is the result of that idea.

It's a pretty easy project and I just used whatever I had lying around to make it, I'm sure the 3D printing community can improve on this. I've attached my drawing so you can try to make an STL.

• Plywood
• Flat Steel Bar
• Sheet Metal (optional)
• Square Steel Bar
• Rubber Feet
• Screws
• Doweling
• Compression Springs
• Foam Tape
• Epoxy Glue
• Hacksaw Blade
• Magnets
• Phone Repair Tool
• Hacksaw
• Pop Rivet Gun
• Bench Grinder
• Angle Grinder
• Tin Snips
• Drill
• Saw
• Dremel with Diamond Bit
• File
• Sandpaper
• Small Bolts
• Clamps

This is a pretty easy step, lay out the size of the body with a marking knife or pencil and then cut out the main plywood body with a handsaw. Once this is cut out smooth off the edges with some sandpaper.

I cut off two lengths of the flat bar and marked out the shape on one piece. Now clamp both pieces together and drill the main hole plus a couple of spare ones in the area that will be cut off. Use some small bolts to hold both pieces together and remove the clamps. This just makes everything a little easier to work with rather than some big clamps.

Now use an angle grinder to cut out the sides, I had to use a hacksaw to to get a clean angle in the corner. I then marked out the small holes and drilled them through both pieces and used a couple of small pop-rivets to hold everything together.

You can now grind, file and sand the sides until you get them to the final shape and size. It's also a good time to sand and polish the sides to look nice.

You can now knock out the rivets and separate the two sides.

I found the easiest way to attach the sides is to clamp the plywood base to my workbench and line up the sides in the correct location. I then drilled a small hole to avoid splitting the wood and screwed the sides on.

The top plate isn't required but it does make everything look nicer. Mark out the correct size on a piece of sheet metal and cut it out with some tinsnips. It's a good idea to sand the edges as they can be very sharp.

I then mixed up some epoxy glue directly on the wooden base and clamped the steel sheet in place on top of the base. Be sure to use a scrap piece of wood on top of the steel to both protect it from marking and apply the force evenly.

Once the glue sets remove the clamps and clean up any glue that spilled out.

Cut two lengths of the square bar and smooth off the ends with sandpaper or a file. Now mark the centre of the holes and drill a small hole on each end of the bar. I then clamped the crossbars in place and drilled through the base of the table using the crossbars as a guide.

If you want you can now sand and polish the crossbars at this stage.

Cut two pieces of foam tape and stick one on each of the cross bars.

Finally, use four small bolts and springs to fix the crossbars onto the base, the crossbars should be able to move up and down while the springs apply downward pressure.

Flip the base upside down and screw on four rubber feet, these are a simple addition that helps to provide a stable base and stop it from slipping around.

I only had a small piece of large doweling left so I cut this in half and drilled a hole through the centre. I then pushed a smaller piece of dowel through the centre. You want the large dowel to be a snug fit on the cardboard centre of the baking paper roll.

Mark the centre of each end of the spindle and drill a small hole in it to prevent it from splitting when you screw it into place. You can now screw this onto the mixing table, don't screw it too tight, you want this to be able to spin freely.

Use an angle grinder to cut a hacksaw blade to length, since the blade is hardened steel you can't drill this with normal drill bits. I just used a small diamond bit on my Dremel to grind three holes through the blade, the alternative would be to soften the steel of the blade, but this was quicker.

I used to use random sticks to mix my epoxy glue, but I discovered the perfect Mixing Spatulas a few years ago. These are actually cheap little tools for taking apart cell phones, but are perfect for mixing and applying epoxy glue.

I had a collection of magnetics from a bunch of old hard disk drives I had taken apart so I screwed four of these to the underside of the mixing table to hold the spatulas. I otherwise keep misplacing them.

Lastly, I screwed on a picture frame mounting bracket so I can hang the table on my tool wall so it's out of the way.

I designed the mixing table to take half a roll of baking paper because I didn't want it to be too large. You can of course adjust the size to suit your needs and cut the paper roll to fit.

I wrapped some tape around the paper roll to stop it from tearing up too much while I cut it. I then measured the roll to 150mm long and marked this.

Now you can carefully saw this in half and put the roll onto the mixing table.

When I initially made this I just used whatever bolts I had on hand, but after using this a few times I found spring tension was a bit tight to lift the front bar up if there was a lot of mess on the paper. I opted to buy a few 100mm M3 bolts and thumb nuts. This time I bolted it from the bottom and locked it in place with a hex nut. This holds the bolt in place regardless of the spring. After reinstalling the bar and spring I added a small thumb nut so I could quickly adjust the tension.

I'm thinking about removing the saw blade at the front as well, it gets in the way of picking up the paper to pull through.