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Sealing the inside of vessels to hold water.

T

Tom Rice

Joined
Jan 30, 2026
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I am wanting to turn vases, small ones, large ones, oddball ones, just functional vases.
Have seen folks use test tubes and 3D printed tubes to hold stems and water.
Have any of you all sealed the inside with resin so flowers and water can be placed directly into a wood form?
What possible drawbacks to this?
Should it be a twice turned totally dry form or can it be a once turned from green then left to sit a bit and dry piece. I know fresh turned from green would be bad, would definitely delam.
Was thinking something like laminating either a polyester laminating resin or west systems type epoxy, mostly because thats what im familiar with.
Just a curiousity, will most likely give it a try no matter what but was curious if anyone ever did this.
Mahalo
 
Possible drawbacks are a material that changes shape every season and covering that material a product that hardens and gets brittle over time. Cracks in the epoxy will create a disaster. Also cleaning out the vase after the water goes bad from having a natural material sitting in the water over time and it goes rank. That could require bleach and soap and water. Neither very good for the outside of the vase.
 
Richard Coers said:
Possible drawbacks are a material that changes shape every season and covering that material a product that hardens and gets brittle over time. Cracks in the epoxy will create a disaster. Also cleaning out the vase after the water goes bad from having a natural material sitting in the water over time and it goes rank. That could require bleach and soap and water. Neither very good for the outside of the vase.
Click to expand...
Might be better to just figure out inserts, i suppose a good excuse to get a 3D printer 🤫,
But at least the inserts can be removed and cleaned. On larger vases, originally had considered using PVC pipe with an end cap and a cut off coupling at the top to match size of the cap and turn the opening to fit the diameter of the coupling close but still loose enough to pull it out. The fittings can be kinda spendy, but i suppose still cheaper than buying borosilicate straight wall beakers and more flexible size wise. Can go long/short/wider pipe etc
 
Another thought is seal the inside with epoxy, leave a drain hole in case of spills and use a glass insert to hold the water Example attached.
 

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Was thinking use pieces like these originally, faster, not cheap but IMHO better
The epox or resin was cheaper though.


EISCO 12PK Tall Form Beakers Without Spout, 250mL - Graduated - Borosilicate Glass - Berzelius Beakers: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

EISCO 12PK Tall Form Beakers Without Spout, 250mL - Graduated - Borosilicate Glass - Berzelius Beakers: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.com
 
Howdy Tom, Since you are open to different forms and sizes, head on over to the local Goodwill, Salvation Army, Thrift Shop, or dollar store and surf the glassware isle. Lots of times you might find a thin glass to be used for a vase. For some reason test tubes can be expensive, but shop around for those... they work great for twig pots. Michael's and Hobby Lobby too.
 
Jaramiah Severns said:
If you’re serious about a 3D printer, I’ve been using the Bambu P2S for a while to make jigs and other odds and ends for turning. It’s a great machine and not crazy expensive.
Click to expand...
Been looking at the Bamboo Lab stuff on Matter Hackers, prices aren't too bad really, i think i could get with the program pretty fast with one, have pretty extensive AutoCAD experience and from what the guy was telling me i can draw in AutoCAD then drop the DWF file into the driver program and add data to it to set up for printing, their stand alone program looks pretty similar to AutoCAD too, so might not be too big a leap, just hard to know if i will really need that machine enough to justify the purchase.
 
If you want a water holding vase, you will need to turn dry wood so it won't crack. I used epoxy to coat some goblets made by one of one of our high school students, and short term, it worked. He moved on and I have no idea how it went long term.

When I made a largish flower vase, I decided to try it on that, too. It worked for a while, but eventually the wood cracked and the vase leaked. (Or maybe the epoxy cracked, leaked water, which caused the wood to crack) In any case, it didn't work out. Next one, I used a glass (or maybe plastic) test tube type insert. Unless you're going into commercial production, buying a half dozen of them retail won't break the bank.
 
The glass test tube can work but the ones I tried the wood warped and broke the glass.
21071Vase.JPG21071VaseD.JPG
This is an idea that I tried once, it uses a Tupperware cup that is 4.25" tall and2.75" diameter at the top rim. The rim would jam into the smallest inside diameter, which is at about halfway up the vase.
I came to the conclusion that it is better to use wood vases with dried or fake flowers or peacock feathers look realy good.
 
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