Midwest Woodturners DBA Pour Your Own Epoxy — Local services in Town of Martell

I attended the Pour Your Own Epoxy workshop at Sanitas Brewery in Boulder, CO on Sunday, July 13. The project I chose was a handled charcuterie board. I am giving a 5 star rating solely for our instructor Darrin who was very knowledgeable, funny and as efficient as he could be given the crowd. He deserves a raise for continuously being kind and courteous answering what must have been a thousand questions, mostly repeat questions, from the attendees.

However, for the company, I would give 2 stars. They have been doing this business for a while and the workshop was very inefficient. Poor Darrin was expected to instruct and support what had to be 40+ people all by himself. The setup was multiple 6ft folding tables in 2 super long rows with people shoulder to shoulder on BOTH sides of these narrow tables. There was very little room between the large plastic bins containing our projects for our 2 each epoxy cups, let alone the beverage that was included in the price of the workshop. The pictures on the website that show people only one side of these tables in a classroom set up was not the experience I had in Boulder. Poor Darrin was also expected to review safety instructions and "demonstrate" how to stir, pour, treat the bubbles and create subtle blending of two colors of the epoxy between two precut pieces of wood to 40+ people with his demo tub lying flat on his table. The mass of people were expected to crowd around, leaving less than half of the attendees able to see. In this day and age of technology, there should be a camera pointed at the demonstration tub with a large projection screen showing what the instructor is doing so people can remain at their stations. Then, directly following the demo all attendees began a line up to get their epoxy. My terrible mistake was choosing to sit close to the instruction table as the mass of people gathered around for the demo and then in line for their epoxy created a heat generating barrier of bodies. I don't know if there was AC in the brewery space we were in, but if there was, it was completely inefficient for the number of people attending. There should have been at least 3 instructors with 3 separate instruction tables and the attendees should have been divided between the three accordingly. Alternatively, if you are only going to have one instructor, then the workshop size should be limited to 15 - 20 people. As for the pricing, it is steep at $139 for a single charcuterie board, and that's before shipping costs ($20) added to receive the final product in 6-10 weeks. Our project active time was about 10 minutes, the rest was the instruction, listening to tons of questions/answers and waiting to get our epoxy supplies. Overall, I would not recommend this workshop to friends and family in it's current format and at it's current...

I took a “pour your own epoxy” class through Midwest Woodworking. The class was held in a corner of a brewery’ sampling room. There were a number of TV’s broadcasting different sporting events with sound on and groups of people at nearby tables talking loudly. While the instructor spoke as loud as possible, I had to strain to hear him and concentrate to fill in the gaps where I missed a word or two. The project was just as described, and I enjoyed making a charcuterie board. I received an email a few days later thanking me for taking the class, saying the boards we created would be ready in 4-6 weeks, and to be on the lookout for updates. At 7 weeks (and no updates), I sent an email to Midwest Woodworking asking for an update on my order (I included the order number). After no response, on week 8 I again emailed asking for an update with no response. I called the company but after 3 rings it went to voicemail. This is a poor way to do business when your marketing is Instagram and word-of-mouth! I give one star because I did enjoy making the project but with zero customer service, the poor choice of location, and no finished project to show for the amount of money it cost to take the class, I would not recommend...

One star because the class itself was fun and it is a good concept. Otherwise it's been a pretty bad experience. The class was in November and we are now at the end of January and I never got my board and getting someone to answer you from this company is like pulling teeth. They ask me to confirm my address via email and I tell them that the address is wrong and then I never hear anything. Next day, i email again to make sure they got it and they said they sent it out already. So why ask me to confirm the address if you aren't going to look at the email I send back the same day? If you were that much in a time crunch and you were going to send it out right after emailing me then you should have asked to confirm my email the day or two PRIOR to the day you are shipping it out. You shipped it out anyways after asking me so asking was pointless. I've sent 3 emails since asking what is going on and no one is answering me, called twice with no answer also. So I have no clue where my board is or if I'll ever get it. Majorly pissed and out a nice chunk of change with nothing to prove for it. Definitely beware...