I’m always thinking of ways to streamline my process, especially since I’ve been doing way more reed production lately! My default was to have little piles and I kinda kept track mentally if what each pile was, but I’ve gotten mixed up more than a couple times recently and I don’t want to keep wasting time! 😆😆
A common sight:
To avoid this chaos, I devised a tray that has various dividers to keep my process streamlined. The tray will have four rows for each of the 4 times I’ll test a reed before selling it. (More on that later!) And because I do everything over-the-top, I decided to make it epoxy-tastic and pretty!
I took a trip to Home Depot for the supplies-
- piece of thin plywood
- square divider sticks
- epoxy resin for pouring
- box cutter blade (or a saw)
- hacksaw blade to cut the divider sticks
- alcohol inks
- white spray paint
- measuring tape
- hot glue gun
- painters tape
- containers for resin
- scale
- full respirator to protect against fumes
- gloves
Luckily I had everything except the wood and spray paint already. Here’s the wood piece- it’s 2ftx4ft here before I cut it down to 2ftx1.5ft:
After I cut the board (with a blade because I was too lazy to go get the saw and set it up😆) the next step was to put the border on so that when you pour in the epoxy it stays contained. I cut some of the square sticks for a border and hot glued them on. It doesn’t have to be perfectly glued with wood glue or anything because eventually the epoxy will hold them in place.
Here’s the border being attached:
Once the border was on there, I painted the whole thing white so there would be better contrast with the alcohol ink colors. You could paint it black or some other color, kinda just personal preference! I just did that outside in the sun, and I did two coats:
And here it is indoors after the paint:
The next step is where it gets fun- the epoxy!! Make sure to put some painter’s tape all along the outside edge so the epoxy doesn’t run out from under the border pieces.
✨✨Also please wear a full respirator, epoxy fumes are VERY bad for you.✨✨
I wish I took better pictures of the process, but I poured about 14 ounces total of two-part epoxy together using a scale to get the right ratios. Any resin will do, as long as it’s clear and meant for pouring/casting. (I get mine from Michael’s when there’s a coupon because it’s a little expensive).
I mixed it up and then divided it into a few cups for blue, dark blue, and teal. Then you kinda just pour it all on and let it spread out. After the whole thing is covered, you can go in and add drops of color where you want it and the inks do their magic! 
The inks will spread and interact to create an amazing design. The inks I got were from Michael’s.
The most important step: a heat gun! This instantly pops all the little bubbles that form so you have a nice smooth finish. You can see in the background how new drops of ink start as a little circle before mixing into the other colors.
While the epoxy was setting, I went outside and painted the rest of the sticks white. After they dried, I cut them to size and carefully laid them into the wet epoxy, being careful not to disturb it. This will ensure they stay in place and I don’t have to waste additional time gluing them in.
And there you have it! Once this cures for a couple days I’ll use my label maker to label it and the new reed testing tray will be ready for action!!