I built a Charging station using EPOXY

to get started with our charging station we first need to create a mold that would kind of house and frame out the epoxy resin to do so I grabbed some of the scrap shelving material essentially you just need any kind of melamine surface that would prevent things from getting stuck to it and when I made the cuts I essentially created the overall mold to be 6x 7 in now the depth had to at least hold one 1 in but at some points we can actually pour a little bit more just so later on we can sand some of it off when assembling our molds I'm just using basic 1 and a/4 in screws to do a butt joint and tighten all together but the big idea here is to waterproof the area to prevent it from leaking out through all these joints so to do so we need to use some tape the tape that we need is specifically a waterproofing tape typically people use a sheathing kind of tape that you can find in your local hardware store I got the stuff from T-Rex it's a waterproof tape it was my first time trying it so I was very curious if it's extremely sticky and it's very flexible so I was just going to give that a go now they actually epoxy resin there's a lot of different products out there and you can go whatever you want but the guys on my local Woodcraft kind of turned me onto this new product called system 3 it's my very first time using it specifically because they said this is a product that's far more easier to work with and a lot more clear and transparent so I decided to give it a go it worked great actually it worked just like any other system it's a 2:1 one part hardener two parts resin mix it thoroughly and pour the depth was about 1 in in depth you can always go a little bit more a little bit less but I think overall that give me plenty of room to work with now one dilemma when working with epoxy specifically in colder times of the season is when you pour it you'll see these air bubbles that are there now that stuff stays there when it hardens you will see all those bubbles there's a trick to getting rid of them what I'm using is a ts4000 torch with a map Pro gas from burnomatic and I'm lightly going over the entire surface area bringing the air bubbles to the surface and then they evaporate all you need is a quick couple passes and then you'll have a crystal clear glass smooth surface the epoxy started hardening rather quickly and by the next morning it was rock hard now my biggest fear was that it would chip away and break when the molds would be taken apart so I gave it a full 3 days of drying it might be overkilled but I wanted to be on the safe side specifically how expensive the stuff really is once I got the epoxy safely out of the mold I basically started treating it like I would with rough saw Lumber and decided to start Milling it now this is where it came to an advantage of having a 6x7 because that piece actually fits my jointer after a few passes and nice slow passes I created one true flat side now typically what you would do is after the first side you would bring it to the thickness planer to create a parallel matching surface but I was afraid that being such a small piece my thickness planer would just shoot this thing out so I decided to take my chance and just flip it over and then just kind of eyeball it to make it as flat parallel to the other surface as possible after being done with the Joiner we brought it to the table saw and started squaring off off the edges not much usually about a quarter to even less than that was taken off on each side to create these nice beautiful almost Ice Cube looking Dimensions once we get of our pieces flat we're going to bring our smart technology we're going to lay our phone on our watch and make a marking where the watch will begin with the arm and then where it will meet the phone once we make a little markings use a little square to trace out exactly where the cut will take place now before we cut we're going to bring it to the table saw we're going to tilt the blade about 15° and we're going to create one swift cut on the bottom this is the part that's going to sit towards the base and get glued after creating a nice safe miter cut we can bring it over to our band saw and cut out the arm that we laid out earlier with the smart technology if you don't have a band saw you can always use a jigsaw and just take your time with it sanding is going to be broken down into two parts 80 grit 120 and 220 is going to be done right now where our project is disassembled then the 300 400 5 and 600 is going to be done once our project is assembled I ratted a channnel at the bottom of the base plate to anticipate Ever Getting either a larger phone or a larger case to do so you can take a bull-nose router with your palm router secure a straight edge and take small incremental passes to get to about a/4 in depth now to conceal some of these cables we'll need to drill a few holes the first one will be 1 and 1/8 in in diameter forer bit that will secure the charging station then we'll take a/2 in forcer bit and drill hole all the way through this is where the cable will go towards the back now we need to create a channel that will go from one hole to the other to do so let's lay down some tape to prevent scratching and then use any kind of small bladed saw like in my situation this Dremel saw and create a channel that will run about about a 1/8 in in width from one hole to the other remove the tape and then do the same thing but on the bottom of the docking station this is going to be the part where the charger from the phone is going to have the cable run all the way down through a hole and then run down a channel to be concealed as well attaching the top and bottom parts of this locking station is probably the hardest part mostly because of the awkward clamping pressure that's happening with this miter so the way I kind of tackled on that is using a glue which is the a6000 industrial adhesive and then this cool little jig from certified weld table and clamps plus where this little toggle clamp holds it in place and then I could set the angle exactly where it needs to be to match the base after the glue dries for 24 hours I finished off the second part of the sanding process and so with this we're using 300 400 5 and then 600 grit now the 45 and 600 I'm using these sanding spudgers from Woodcraft as well and they're really handy to do now at this point you'll still see some fine scratches but all of that's going to be concealed once you put the finish on I'm using a shellac mostly because how easy it is to apply if I was to redo this project again I'd probably use a wipe on as opposed to spray just to prevent Orange Peel if but if you do have orange peel that you can totally fix that just use for the 500 grit sandpaper and six to clean up all that stuff and then put another finish code on top now finally when we're securing these cables I'm using a/2 in drill bit to drill a hole all the way through the base and feed the cable through that hole and line it down that channel that we've created I'm going to do the same thing for the watch wireless charger once it's sits in the hub I'm going to feed the cable through the channel and then I'm going to use hot glue to line the channel in the back of the Hub to secure everything in place likewise I'm going to add some hot glue to the bottom of the cell phone charger port as well [Music] guys thanks so much for watching this video it does mean the world to me a big thank you to bomatic for sponsoring this project and partnering with us on this build you guys probably already noticed that I'm wearing the brand new Mr build it Courage and sweat t-shirt I'll put a link in the description below you guys can check out these shirts along with the new Mr build courage and sweat stickers that are out there if you're brand in the channel hit that subscribe button we put a video at every single week like share and comment this video with your friends tuneing out this week we'll see you guys next week see you bye