i'm thinking about the next board and been reading up on resin tints, swirls and stuff - polyester pigments seem easily available in translucent colours (i'm wanting to be able to see through the colour to the wood under) - does anyone have any experience or leads on translucent epoxy pigments? the range from seabase (UK) is a bit limited (opaque red, green, blue), and east coast fibreglass supplies (UK) have a few more colours but again all are opaque. if just a little colour is added into the lam coat with just a couple of stirs then i'm wondering if it would end up with at least some show through? i'm not after an even, all over colour tint, just those kind of abstract swirly patterns. my idea is a mix of red + yellow swirls in a mainly clear lam. I've used resin research before so would prefer to use epoxy again as i've had problems with ISO 7X polyester reactions to some of the wood i've used in the past.. unless translucent pigments in polyester is the only way to get the effect:
theres been some wicked glassing jobs posted here (... royal in particular sticks in the memory, zeph carrig also, plus some awesome garage jobs) - any input would be appreciated as the timber i'm using on this board (9'8" HWS noserider kind of thing = another woody logic / dirty crows / boco rio design) is cheap construction rubbish so am keen to try out something in colour, and a proper lap job leaving the top clear - thanks people
My mentors taught me that tints and pigments can be used with poly or epoxy....
WHAT?....
I'm not a pro but all that color stuff I bought 5 years ago for poly resin is working just fine with epoxy today. The best swirls are done with poly....
Tints are translucent......you can play around with pigments to make them translucent....You will need to do some test pannels..... or...... just go for it!
A few drops of pigment goes a long way..................
Surfding is right, weigh your epoxy. This pic is of an epoxy resin foam stain swirl we did a while ago. Let me just say that it was a pain in the a$$. The epoxy seemed to “sweat” out of the eps durring the curing process.
some good info on here - searched "epoxy swirl" and there was a heap of threads. I think i'll try and get hold of some epoxy pigment and run some tests - the rule seems to be give the colour time to soak into the glass, then try not to over squeegee.. i'm favouring swirl over tint.. we'll see
surfding - love that stripey youtube clip, could look awesome over pale wood
you will find that because epoxy saturates the cloth more readily than poly (therefore easier to use IMHO), it will spread and blend colors within the cloth. poly on the other hand does not saturate the cloth as easily and therefore seems to yield better color separation, sharper lines, and more crisp color separation. my experience has all been with RR epoxy, but I think you would find similar results with other brands.
IOW, you will have to live with a bit more “muddy” color separation using epoxy. perhaps you can adapt that to some advantage. perhaps you will share that with us. perhaps I will be so jealous I will hate you. perhaps.
i've had bad experience with poly on my first wooden board, it would go to jelly over teak but cure everywhere else. no such problems with epoxy though (RR - i like it!) nothing beats the experience of laminating a board in the house with a glass of red on the go, infront of a crackling fire - if i used poly in the house i'd be murdered in the night..
you got me thinking maybe just a seal coat in epoxy then doing the lam with poly? - i like the "BOOM" of the high contrast acid splash swirly designs with sharp edges - over wood maybe more contrast is better than over a white blank.....
I’ve done a lot of epoxy swirls and have tried a lot of different techniques. I suggest splashes and drizzles, or even stripes, over swirls. Swirls can be done, but the colors do blend. I’ve found that you can sort of “go with it” rather than fight it, and use lighter colors that will create more colors when they blend, rather than mud… like using yellow and and light blue that will make green, or red and yellow that will make orange… Try to stay away from things like green and orange, or other compound colors that will make mud.
You can paste it in epoxy then do your acid splash in poly.
If you glass at home I understand the use of RR. I vacuum with RR at home because the family can’t smell it. At the shop we can get wild and just go for it with no nagging. At home we have to be gentlemen. RR is good for that.
Epoxy swirls were really hard for me to get a handle on. I did a pile of practice panels. Some I did over wood because it was scrap wood that I had lying around, and the results were really ugly. Maybe if you concentrate on that exclusively you’ll be able to get a nice result, but I don’t have that kind of ability. In any event, doing some panels will give you a better idea of how your colors will look.
How you mix the colors in your bucket is really important. The colors have to come over the lip of your bucket such that they’ll hit the cloth in the pattern you want, or so that they’ll go on the board in the order you want, then you can tilt the board and have the colors spill onto the board. Practice with the same kind of bucket you’ll use for the actual pour, so you can see how the lip affects your mix!
Tilting and shaking the board can create the sunburst you’re looking for – this was one of my earliest attempts:
D
Don’t forget your swirl techniques from poly – they all still apply, just a little differently because of the characteristics of epoxy. Rails will still be harder, etc, so pay extra attention to rounded surfaces in your practice so you can keep your colors separate on the rails:
Sorry about the bad pics…hopefully they’re enough to illustrate.
You can try to vary the amount of accelerant and thinners (incl heat) to get a more poly-like look, but remember the finished surface of your blank will also play a part in getting the colors to lay down. Wood can be finished so smooth that it’s a different animal from foam, so if you’re insistent on swirling epoxy on wood, be sure to practice on wood that has been finished as your blank will be finished…
I strongly recommend you memorize every word of advice in the “Show us your resin tints & swirls” thread. Lotta pros gave the community a lot of great advice in those pages – better sources do not exist!
stingray, I like that look. Bold miminalist. You did that after the lam? Just pour it on? Why didn't it just drain off?
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I did some tests first. RR CE Resin takes a little over 2 hours to cure. Lam board , wait about an hour , pour on color. Let it drip off the sides. (I can't remember but I think I lammed the deck first on that board.) Then hot coat. You will have a rasied area where the color is. If you've been following the Low Tech Lab thread there's a short board in the beginning that I went really crazy on. The resin is really thick on that one so I'm sure it will crack after some heavy surfing. I used standard pigments. Not special epoxy pigments........
D
