David350
Member
I decided to give the Berea Artist's UV Curing Resin a try as a finish, although it is marketed as a product for blank making. In short, I am more than thrilled with the results. This is by far the easiest, quickest, and least expensive finish I have used on a wood pen. After turning the desert ironwood blank and sanding to 800, I hit it with compressed air, then wiped down the blank with DNA. I cut a piece of the foam sheets I bought from Walmart online to slightly wider than the blank. I then applied a bead (about 1/8" diameter) of the resin across the width of the foam sheet to match the length of the blank. I turned on the lathe on slow and applied evenly from the underside of the blank. I then shuttled the foam sheet from side to side a couple of times (only moving about a quarter of an inch sideways as my foam already covered the entire width of the blank) to make sure I had an even application and then removed the pad from the blank. I let the lathe run a couple of minutes as I believe it would be self leveling as it is very viscous compared to CA glue. I then turned on the UV light and let it continue on slow for 4-5 minutes. I then turned off the UV light and lathe, and was done. There was no sanding, no polishing, no anything. As you can see, it seems to be a nice finish. I will say that the gloss "toned down" a bit after a few days from when I originally finished it and I am glad for that as initially, it was a bit too much gloss for my taste.
In short, this would be similar to applying CA except that you use UV light instead of the accelerant. However, you only need one coat and there is no sanding afterwards. The pictures I have attached are of my second attempt as I wasn't careful enough the first time and had a contaminant either on the blank or foam pad and had a couple of blemishes in the finish. I noticed it sanded down just like CA, except that it took a lot more sanding to get to get back down to the wood. This would suggest it easily creates a relatively thick coat which is inline with its marketing. It also has very minimal smell to me, I only noticed it the first time I used it.
Finally, after my first attempt, I did invest in the pictured UV light from Amazon as I was too lazy to shine the UV flashlight back and forth for the prescribed 2-4 minutes. The flashlight might be perfectly fine, but I preferred using the one pictured for its ease and not having to worry about batteries, etc. I think it would be wise enough to do a 2 barrel pen like a cigar as well. As you can see from the picture of the foam pad after applying the resin to the blank, I probably could have applied less to the pad. Next time I do this, I will do a before and after weighing of the pad to see how many grams I am actually applying to the blank. I am guessing you could easily get 50 blanks coated as a finish with the 100 gram bottle. Let me know if there are any questions, and I would encourage others to give this a try, especially if CA is bothering you.
In short, this would be similar to applying CA except that you use UV light instead of the accelerant. However, you only need one coat and there is no sanding afterwards. The pictures I have attached are of my second attempt as I wasn't careful enough the first time and had a contaminant either on the blank or foam pad and had a couple of blemishes in the finish. I noticed it sanded down just like CA, except that it took a lot more sanding to get to get back down to the wood. This would suggest it easily creates a relatively thick coat which is inline with its marketing. It also has very minimal smell to me, I only noticed it the first time I used it.
Finally, after my first attempt, I did invest in the pictured UV light from Amazon as I was too lazy to shine the UV flashlight back and forth for the prescribed 2-4 minutes. The flashlight might be perfectly fine, but I preferred using the one pictured for its ease and not having to worry about batteries, etc. I think it would be wise enough to do a 2 barrel pen like a cigar as well. As you can see from the picture of the foam pad after applying the resin to the blank, I probably could have applied less to the pad. Next time I do this, I will do a before and after weighing of the pad to see how many grams I am actually applying to the blank. I am guessing you could easily get 50 blanks coated as a finish with the 100 gram bottle. Let me know if there are any questions, and I would encourage others to give this a try, especially if CA is bothering you.
