Colouring Epoxy Resin - Make Wood Good

.Colouring epoxy resin is a technique that can be used to create dramatic lettering or symbols on signs. Alternatively you can just personalise a breadboard or other wooden object as a beautiful handmade present. The techniques for colouring all epoxy resins are much the same, and a variety of pigments can be used. We sell paint grade metal oxide pigments, titanium dioxide and iron oxide pigments as a colouring kit. You can use these to colour everything from resins to concrete. Buy our colouring kit with a single colour for lettering. Alternatively buy the full four colour kit to match any wood colour. Other pigments are available including liquid pigments. We illustrate this article with the house sign that we restored in 2019. Click on an image to enlarge, browser back button to go back to the article.

Table of Contents

Colouring Epoxy Resin to make a dramatic sign

Shown below is our house sign which has been restored. Before we varnish it, we have primed with smiths CPES in our how to varnish properly article. After priming all surfaces with Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer, we can see that it has enhanced the grain. Furthermore it leaves no blush and is a powerful primer to which all epoxies will adhere tenaciously. This is our varnish primer of course. We applied two coats and waited overnight until they were touch dry. The sign is starting to look nice now.

Levelling the workpiece

We filled the words one at a time as the wood was rather warped. Michelle recovered this timber from a fire in a historic pub. The timber was old before she made into our sign. I set the word ‘Lodge’ level on a flat surface, and clamped it down. Clamps held it down onto plastic spacers that levelled it on my work surface. I score Irwin Quick Grip clamps very highly indeed by the way, as they are fast simple and very reliable. I use a small spirit level on the target word, clearly seen in the image below.

sign primed with cpes clear penetrating epoxy resin prior to filling with coloured epoxy resin

To ensure accurate mixes I use kitchen scales to weigh the two components of the Smiths Layup and Laminating epoxy that I used. Whilst Colouring epoxy resin black for our lettering I could have used any epoxy resin with a set time of a half hour or greater here instead of layup and laminating. We decided on black lettering for a classical look and added a small amount from one of our epoxy colouring kits.

I mixed 22 grams of epoxy for each word on our sign. This was more than enough, but means that the colouring is very consistent.

Use scales to weigh epoxy resin to colour the letters on the sign

Filling the Lettering

I used a disposable pipette to carefully fill the letters to level. The resin is liquid so it will flow and settle.Let the coloured epoxy resin settle then adjust the level by adding or removing with the pipette. If you don’t have a steady hand then I suggest you find someone who does here. It is an awful job clearing epoxy resin off if you spill any, particularly if you don’t have clean up solvent to hand.

Use a blowtorch or a lighter to burst any bubbles that rise to the surface of the coloured epoxy resin. The localised heating will also thin the resin and assist it to flow and level faster. I used this lighter for about 4 seconds per letter to burst the bubbles here.

colouring epoxy resin exterior wood signage burst bubbles in epoxy resin with heat

The finished result – Coloured epoxy resin lettering

exterior wood sign ready for topcoats and uv protection

The nearly finished wood sign is now ready to have some UV protection applied to it. It already looks far better than it did when it was new, let alone a week ago when the restoration started. Finish the story of our sign and follow it’s maintenance over the years in our how to varnish properly article.