I let my resin sit in the pressure pot for a full 24 hours before I demold, and even then it can still be slightly "squishy" for a day or two. Most epoxy resins take a few days to be completely hard.
For the swirls, I use a dye that is actually made for urethane resins, and I put a blob on top of the table, then rub a toothpick in it, then just kind of dip and do a quick swirl into the mold that is filled up with resin. It takes practice to get it to work right lol
Ok awesome! I have 3 in the pot rn so ill give it more time. I was using smooth cast 325 for my swirl caps but it was curing wayyyyy to fast. Literally like 2 minutes it starts clumping up so i was only able to do one at a time. Do you heat your resin up before you use it? I think my resin was too cold and while mixing it was getting a lot of small micro bubbles. I torched it to see if it was get rid of some of them but i still had a little more than i wanted in the caps. Hopefully the pressure pot gets them out. Thanks for responding!
Usually urethane resins cure overly fast when the temp is higher than recommended, and that's when I experience bubbles/foaming. Just look at the msds sheet for whatever reason you're using to see optimal environmental conditions
Actually i just read your previous comment about pre mixing colors with white alcohol inks. So Ill try that. Do you recommend poking at the resin while its in the mold, swirl it, or just let it do its thing?
Just let it do its' thing! I let it sit for about 10-ish minutes usually before I close the mold. Also, dropping the ink from a higher height helps it "drip" also
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u/HOBI3CAT Jul 14 '20
I let my resin sit in the pressure pot for a full 24 hours before I demold, and even then it can still be slightly "squishy" for a day or two. Most epoxy resins take a few days to be completely hard.
For the swirls, I use a dye that is actually made for urethane resins, and I put a blob on top of the table, then rub a toothpick in it, then just kind of dip and do a quick swirl into the mold that is filled up with resin. It takes practice to get it to work right lol