Resin Some More
Nov. 23rd, 2016 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenThis resin stuff is getting addictive. I've done some more, both with UV resin and epoxy resin. I did some more today too, but I won't know how those turn out until tomorrow night.
So... here are some I prepared earlier.
Fish pendant by KJA. UV resin, in layers, with mica powder.
This was one of my successes with UV resin. I'm rather amazed that it worked, considering that there are at least four layers of resin there, each of which was cured for at least 15 minutes under the UV lamp. I put a clear bead into its head when the layers were high enough, so that there would be a hole so I could string it as a pendant. I had brushed "Interference Gold" mica powder on the inside of the mould, and though there were other colours mixed in the different layers, that colour ended up dominating the whole. But there was one bit where the layer was darker green, and you could see bits of it through the gold. I liked that effect.
Feather Clouds by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, white feathers, pearl mica powder, interference gold mica powder (you cannot see it), brass bead for the pendant hole, mould was silicone muffin tin.
I was trying to embed feathers in resin, and oh boy it was a mess. So I added pearly mica powder and there was too much of it, and it was even more of a mess. But somehow it came out looking like pearly clouds, lovely.
Grey Feather Clouds by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, grey feathers, pearl mica powder, nickel bead for the pendant hole, mould was silicone muffin tin.
This was my other attempt at feathers in resin, this time with a grey feather. This one I'm not sure what to do with; I don't like it as it is, it didn't work like the white one.
Silver Steampunk I by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, various metal beads, cogs, watchworks; silver mica powder; domed with Lisa Pavelka UV resin; mould was silicone mini-muffin cup; pendant-hole made by metal bead stuck to mould with double-sided tape.
Silver Steampunk II by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, various metal beads, cogs, watchworks; silver mica powder; domed with Lisa Pavelka UV resin; mould was silicone mini-muffin cup; pendant-hole made by metal bead stuck to mould with double-sided tape.
These were my attempt to make a silver-coloured steampunk pendant, along the same lines as the gold one I made earlier. They're nice, but not quite what I wanted. I've made another attempt at this style today, but I don't know whether it's worked yet, and it's the one I'm most anxious about.
geeny-gold fish pendant #2 by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, interference gold mica painted on inside of mould, spring green mica powder mixed with the resin. Silicone mould of Koi fish.
As I said above, I liked the effect of the green peeking through the gold with my fish pendant... so I tried to reproduce the effect, this time using epoxy resin and pouring the whole mould at once. Alas, it didn't work. I didn't manage to brush off enough of the Interference Gold mica, and it once again dominated the fish colour. Not that it's ugly, it's interesting, but not what I was hoping for. Note that, while in these photographs, the top fish looks more golden and this one more green, they are actually very similar in colour, it was just hard to capture in the photos.
I was tearing my hair out as to how I could make these fish pendants into necklaces that had matching cords/chains, because it's such a pale gold, with a greeny undertone, that it wouldn't go with normal gold at all. But it occurred to me today that I have a limited-edition colour of Anodized Aluminium rings, pale yellow, that would match them nicely. So that's good.
three pendants by KJA. Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos UV resin and mica powder done in layers.
More UV resin, attempting to make marbled glittery pearly pendants. Unfortunately, the marbling doesn't work with the Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos UV resin because it isn't viscous enough, and when I swirl the mica powder through the resin, it un-swirls pretty quick.
At least with the Loon UV resin, the swirling worked. Possibly because, since it was designed for fly-tying, it was viscous enough to stay put, since it (the thick type, anyway) is designed to be squirted onto a fly body and stay put long enough that one can cure it with a UV torch without it dripping off. It might be worth trying out another brand of UV resin designed for fly-tying, like Solarez. The Lisa Pavelka UV resin seems to work best when I'm adding a clear dome onto an epoxy-resin pendant after it's cured. For other things, it doesn't always do what I want it to do; which probably means I'm asking it to do things it is not suited for. But some puzzle me. There are a couple of my embossing-powder-on-aluminium pendants that I decided to add a dome to with the Lisa Pavelka UV resin, and they both cured in the middle, but refused to cure around the edges. I have no idea why, and don't know how to find out. 8-( At least with two-part resin, there are lots of tips-and-tricks out there, and most of the time, curing problems are caused by not measuring/mixing it properly, and the next most common causes of curing problems seems to be humidity and temperature (in other words, the local weather).
Oh, speaking of tips and tricks, I've got a couple of them I found myself!
1. A minor one: Lisa Pavelka recommends that one puts the piece one wishes to dome, onto a piece of scrap polymer clay and onto a card, so that the piece is elevated (in case of drips) and easier to move without disturbing the uncured resin. Well, it's not like I have scrap polymer clay lying around, so I thought I'd try Blu-Tac. That works pretty well, though it tends to be harder to get off because it goes all thin and stretchy when it gets hot, which happens when the resin is curing. So I suppose one could use kids' modelling clay (aka Playdoh) but I don't have any of that either.
2. I've already mentioned that I like to put a bead at the top of a pendant, so that there's a hole that I don't have to drill (I haven't attempted drilling into resin yet) and so that I don't have to mess with E6000 or epoxy glue in order to glue a bail onto the pendant. And I think I mentioned in a previous post that resin tends to get inside the bead, either from the top or (more commonly) from the bottom. I've now figured out a way around that: stick a small piece of double-sided tape onto the end of the bead, and trim it closely around the end, and then put the bead into the mould. The double-sided tape helps the bead to stay upright, and also prevents resin seeping in the bottom. If the tape is trimmed close enough, you can just take it off with a toothpick when the piece is cured, and it is hardly noticeable that it was there. If the piece of tape is too big, though, I think it would show up as a dent in the resin. This could be fixed, though, if one was doming the piece; the doming resin would probably fill in the dent.
So... here are some I prepared earlier.
Fish pendant by KJA. UV resin, in layers, with mica powder.
This was one of my successes with UV resin. I'm rather amazed that it worked, considering that there are at least four layers of resin there, each of which was cured for at least 15 minutes under the UV lamp. I put a clear bead into its head when the layers were high enough, so that there would be a hole so I could string it as a pendant. I had brushed "Interference Gold" mica powder on the inside of the mould, and though there were other colours mixed in the different layers, that colour ended up dominating the whole. But there was one bit where the layer was darker green, and you could see bits of it through the gold. I liked that effect.
Feather Clouds by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, white feathers, pearl mica powder, interference gold mica powder (you cannot see it), brass bead for the pendant hole, mould was silicone muffin tin.
I was trying to embed feathers in resin, and oh boy it was a mess. So I added pearly mica powder and there was too much of it, and it was even more of a mess. But somehow it came out looking like pearly clouds, lovely.
Grey Feather Clouds by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, grey feathers, pearl mica powder, nickel bead for the pendant hole, mould was silicone muffin tin.
This was my other attempt at feathers in resin, this time with a grey feather. This one I'm not sure what to do with; I don't like it as it is, it didn't work like the white one.
Silver Steampunk I by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, various metal beads, cogs, watchworks; silver mica powder; domed with Lisa Pavelka UV resin; mould was silicone mini-muffin cup; pendant-hole made by metal bead stuck to mould with double-sided tape.
Silver Steampunk II by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, various metal beads, cogs, watchworks; silver mica powder; domed with Lisa Pavelka UV resin; mould was silicone mini-muffin cup; pendant-hole made by metal bead stuck to mould with double-sided tape.
These were my attempt to make a silver-coloured steampunk pendant, along the same lines as the gold one I made earlier. They're nice, but not quite what I wanted. I've made another attempt at this style today, but I don't know whether it's worked yet, and it's the one I'm most anxious about.
geeny-gold fish pendant #2 by KJA. CraftSmart Liquid Gloss epoxy resin, interference gold mica painted on inside of mould, spring green mica powder mixed with the resin. Silicone mould of Koi fish.
As I said above, I liked the effect of the green peeking through the gold with my fish pendant... so I tried to reproduce the effect, this time using epoxy resin and pouring the whole mould at once. Alas, it didn't work. I didn't manage to brush off enough of the Interference Gold mica, and it once again dominated the fish colour. Not that it's ugly, it's interesting, but not what I was hoping for. Note that, while in these photographs, the top fish looks more golden and this one more green, they are actually very similar in colour, it was just hard to capture in the photos.
I was tearing my hair out as to how I could make these fish pendants into necklaces that had matching cords/chains, because it's such a pale gold, with a greeny undertone, that it wouldn't go with normal gold at all. But it occurred to me today that I have a limited-edition colour of Anodized Aluminium rings, pale yellow, that would match them nicely. So that's good.
three pendants by KJA. Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos UV resin and mica powder done in layers.
More UV resin, attempting to make marbled glittery pearly pendants. Unfortunately, the marbling doesn't work with the Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos UV resin because it isn't viscous enough, and when I swirl the mica powder through the resin, it un-swirls pretty quick.
At least with the Loon UV resin, the swirling worked. Possibly because, since it was designed for fly-tying, it was viscous enough to stay put, since it (the thick type, anyway) is designed to be squirted onto a fly body and stay put long enough that one can cure it with a UV torch without it dripping off. It might be worth trying out another brand of UV resin designed for fly-tying, like Solarez. The Lisa Pavelka UV resin seems to work best when I'm adding a clear dome onto an epoxy-resin pendant after it's cured. For other things, it doesn't always do what I want it to do; which probably means I'm asking it to do things it is not suited for. But some puzzle me. There are a couple of my embossing-powder-on-aluminium pendants that I decided to add a dome to with the Lisa Pavelka UV resin, and they both cured in the middle, but refused to cure around the edges. I have no idea why, and don't know how to find out. 8-( At least with two-part resin, there are lots of tips-and-tricks out there, and most of the time, curing problems are caused by not measuring/mixing it properly, and the next most common causes of curing problems seems to be humidity and temperature (in other words, the local weather).
Oh, speaking of tips and tricks, I've got a couple of them I found myself!
1. A minor one: Lisa Pavelka recommends that one puts the piece one wishes to dome, onto a piece of scrap polymer clay and onto a card, so that the piece is elevated (in case of drips) and easier to move without disturbing the uncured resin. Well, it's not like I have scrap polymer clay lying around, so I thought I'd try Blu-Tac. That works pretty well, though it tends to be harder to get off because it goes all thin and stretchy when it gets hot, which happens when the resin is curing. So I suppose one could use kids' modelling clay (aka Playdoh) but I don't have any of that either.
2. I've already mentioned that I like to put a bead at the top of a pendant, so that there's a hole that I don't have to drill (I haven't attempted drilling into resin yet) and so that I don't have to mess with E6000 or epoxy glue in order to glue a bail onto the pendant. And I think I mentioned in a previous post that resin tends to get inside the bead, either from the top or (more commonly) from the bottom. I've now figured out a way around that: stick a small piece of double-sided tape onto the end of the bead, and trim it closely around the end, and then put the bead into the mould. The double-sided tape helps the bead to stay upright, and also prevents resin seeping in the bottom. If the tape is trimmed close enough, you can just take it off with a toothpick when the piece is cured, and it is hardly noticeable that it was there. If the piece of tape is too big, though, I think it would show up as a dent in the resin. This could be fixed, though, if one was doming the piece; the doming resin would probably fill in the dent.
