White Marble Resin Serving Tray

I have been wanting to try Epoxy resin pour for a long time now. Finally, I got my hands on it and made this amazing white marble serving tray with chrome handles. It came out sooo cool and I am very excited to share this DIY with you all. Here is a step by step tutorial if you want to try this on your own.

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What is Epoxy Resin? – In my own simple terms, epoxy resin is a chemical compound when cured, becomes a high thermal and chemical resistant. Its been widely used in adhesives, electrical/electronic applications, paint manufacturing, furniture, flooring etc. Epoxy resin on its own does not have this property. Only when mixed with a hardener agent, it gains its valuable characteristic. When you buy resin, it comes as two parts. Only if you mix them in right proportion, it gives the output that is needed. It can be mixed with color pigments or glow pigments and made into so many creative projects. One thing you want to remember is that epoxy resin will not adhere to plastic, silicone, teflon or vinyl. If you want to learn more Wikipedia could help.

DIY White Marble Resin Serving Tray

Choose the size based on your need : Mine is 12″x 24″. It could seem a little big in size. But this is a good size to use as a breakfast tray on bed or a snack platter for guests or a nice display of fruits on your kitchen Island. We love using it as a snack or food tray during our movie time.

I suggest you to first figure out how you will be using your tray and size it accordingly. If you are going to use it as a drink serving tray for guests, 12″x 16″ size would work best.

Step – 1 : Prep the wood

Sand the ply with 120 grit and then clean with tack cloth to get rid of saw dust. Since the wood is porous, we need to prime and paint it white before starting the resin pour process. I did 3 coats of white on front and two coats on rear. Then, lightly sand with 240 grit sand paper and clean.

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Step – 2 : Mix

Before starting the pour, keep everything you need near you. Because, you have a window of less than 30 minutes to work on the design before it starts to harden. First set the board level and raised about 4 to 6 inches from table top or counter. I used stacked cups to raise the board. Remember to keep plastic sheet underneath for protecting the table.

Next, mix the resin as per the manufacturers direction. Mine was 1:1 (resin: hardener) ratio stirred for about 4 to 5 minutes. Once its thoroughly mixed, divide the resin to mix into the colors. I used 85% of clear resin to mix white, about 5% to mix silver and left the rest as clear. Remember that you have to do everything quickly once mixed.

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How much resin to use? – The quantity to use will be clearly given by the resin manufacturer. As per mine, I should be using all of my 16oz resin for 3 sqft surface. I thought of being a little stingy and first mixed only half of it. Obviously, it was not enough so I mixed some more later. Totally I used 3/4th of my bottle. My advise to you is – Its better to mix and keep ready more rather than ending up short. Because, it will take a lot of your time to get the resin mix properly before pouring. By that time, the already poured resin will start to cure. Since mine was a small project, I got away with making 2 batches.

Step – 3 : Pouring time

First pour the white in random zig zag pattern and spread the resin gently using a foam brush. On top of that, pour a little clear resin and spread them a little. Next, add streaks of silver and white next to each other and spread it again in the same direction of the flow. Till I liked the design, I added layers of white and clear. Meanwhile, bubbles started to raise and I used the heat gun to pop them. It also made the colors move around and overlap to form nice patterns. Make sure to spread the resin on sides too.

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How my mistake turned into an asset: The acrylic silver I used did not mix well with the resin no matter how thoroughly I mixed it. I took a chance and poured it anyway. It sort of sat on the resin as solid tiny chucks. To cover it up, I added more white over it and applied some heat. Then I remembered that I had grey fabric paint on hand. So, mixed it to the clear resin and poured in as streaks using the wood stirrer along with white. Later, those small silver chunks which I added initially created nice depth and gave natural layering into the pattern with subtle grey dots all over as background.

I kept watching the resin for the next couple of hours to make sure it settles properly without any bubbles or discoloring. I did find some dust particles floating on top at some places. But they were not visible unless you look very close. Since they were very hard to remove, I let them as it is. Every now and then I also removed excess resin that gathered as droplets on the underside of the board.

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After letting the resin cure for 48 hours, it was gorgeous and ready to be installed with handles. Boy, it was really hard to let it cure for 2 days without touching it. It was too tempting. After curing, it was buttery smooth to touch and looked totally awesome. I was proud of myself! 🙂

Step – 4 :

After its completely cured, drill holes and attach the handles. Finally, add felt bumpers underneath the tray. Now the tray is ready to be served!

The white marble design came out so great, more than what I had expected.:)

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