Does anybody know of products found maybe at a craft or paint store that you can use to tint epoxy?
Monkstar
Here in NZ boatbuilding we use a adhesive technologies product called epoxy pigmet paste
We only use white and black,its a very thick paste , a 500ml can weighs about 1 kg
You mix in a very very small amount with your resin
I have used it hiding lap areas on carbon boards with no problems
Regards Mike
Hello Sabs,
We have been using those pigments too, we get them from Burnsco. They work well because you don’t need to add a lot to make the epoxy opaque. I suspect from the tell-tale bitter almond smell that the stuff has, that it is probably full of cyanide, which is a bit of a worry with our low tech setup. The weight of the pigment suggests a titanium doixide content although it might be zinc oxide. Recently we got a lot of pigments and tints (Dupont) from a car spray paint supplier who was going out of business. The tints and metallic pearls are fun on the artistic front but they are full of xylene which is almost as bad as toluene. The solvent is so volatile that it won’t stay in the closed bottles even with tape all around the lid.
Copper powder from WEST system is an interesting epoxy additive but it is not really a tint, just an opaque brown.
Roll on the era of low tech pigments.
Roy
True tints are dyes. These do not hold up will in the sun. If you can find a pigment that uses nano tec. particals this would work well for any matrial. The ink people use them. I’m sure the ink jet people use them. I’m guessing you could even get a color ink jet print cartage and use what ever color you want. I have even seen somewhere where they are selling refills that you inject into your old cartage. One of those would work great. Good hunting.
I think that most color additives for epoxy or UP resin are mixtures of pigments, a binder and other chemicals against foaming etc. But would it be possible to use pigment powder as used by artists who mix their own paints to color epoxy resin? That means adding the powder straight to the resin, add hardener, mix, apply?
Has anybody any experiences with pigment powder? Any particle size to watch for?
Thanks
I just used some artist pigments to do a color job on a fish.
I used chrome oxide green pigment. I put 10ml of resin in a little cup and slowly bit by bit mixed in the pigment until the consistancy was paste like, similar to some epoxy pigments I bought from fiberglasssupply. Then mix that paste into your bucket of resin for your lam job.
It turned out pretty good. Not 100% opaque, you can still see the stringer a bit, andmore or less even color. I think that is more because of my inexperience than anything./
It should work with any pigment I think.
Good luck.
Do a search; I posted on this quite a while back…
Dyes will give you a transparent and coloured tint. You can buy solvent dyes for this purpose; they are available online; do a search for solvent dye. Be aware that dyes will definitely fade/change colour upon prolonged exposure to sunlight; some colours fare better than others, with pinks generally being the worst of the bunch. The extent to which they will change is also dependent on the UV inhibition properties of the resin you’re using; if you’re using RR, it’s pre-inhibited, so dyes should fare better than with, say, a lesser quality epoxy that is not UV inhibited. Furthermore, non UV inhibited epoxies yellow; some QUITE badly, which will further contribute to colour change.
As for pigments, I buy mine here; http://www.danielsmith.com/…UID=2006070610360565 . They’ve got every colour under the sun. Mixing is VERY important; improper mixing will lead to clumps of pigment which will streak when squeegeed or rolled. You need to get rid of all of the clumps. My general routine is to make a paste with some of the pigment and a bit of toluene or xylene in a mortar and pestle, then add some resin to the mix until it’s got a decent consistency for adding to lam batches. I then store these ultra-concentrated mixes and use very little in the final lam mix. I’ve gone through an entire 2-ounce bottle of the iridescent russet to lam a 7’3" (that’s pre-mix…2oz of pigment), but that pigment wasn’t all that opaque and I’ve used as little 0.3 oz of chromium green to lam a 6’2" fish.
You will find that some of the pigments are VERY potent and have a high tinting power (contribute alot of colour with very little material addition) whereas some will require very high pigment loading. You will also find that some pigments are more transluscent than others; the closer that the refractive index of the pigment is matched to the epoxy mix, the more transparent the final mix will be; i.e. it will behave more like a dye (though be colourfast) than a pigment. For instance, the quinacridones are generally fairly transparent when mixed whereas the chromium green is HIGHLY opaque.
You will also find that some of the pigments will pop better in a gloss coat than in a lam coat (careful sanding required) and that the glass will sometimes alter the optical properties of the pigments (interference and pearlescent colours generally don’t work well in lam layers, though I’ve had some luck in this regard).
Personally, 5 coloured boards deep now, I wouldn’t ever use dyes again. Pigments, when applied heavily, provide a nice even colour. Unless you’re a very good glasser with experience doing tints and glassing a very smooth shape, a tint, or dye, is more likely to come out blotchy and show your shaping errors than a slightly opaque pigment which will easily lend itself to a nice smooth colour distribution.
Your best bet is to buy some of these from danielsmith, or find an acrylic paintmaker in your neck of the woods that sells the raw pigments and play around. Test panels are a must, but in the end, if you invest the time and effort, you may find the process very rewarding and you’ll certainly have access to colours and effects that you can’t obtain by using the commercial pre-prepped mixes. Final note; titanium or zinc oxides used for whites are usually the HARDEST to grind up into the epoxy; do yourself a favour and buy the pre-fabbed paste for these as Sabs suggests.
HTH
G
Thanks GreatWhite, very informative.
This may not be answering the original posted question [sorry], but I post these shots here to hopefully help show the differences in the "transparency’ of tint vs the “translucency / opacity” of PIGMENT .
[Left to right ]…
burgundy pigment , red pigment , yellow TINT , and yellow pigment
Here is the burgundy pigment , used in an epoxy resin “hotcoat” , to cover up a bad poyester resin resin swirl on the deck of the board…
And…in THIS shot , if you look closely , you ‘may’ see parts of the white underneath showing through …( I will be interested to see how this all holds up / ?changes colour? over time , as I have read that epoxy “can” separate / delam from polyester …)
these photos were taken from this photo thread…
http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1024812&an=0&page=0&gonew=1
…I hope that is useful , anyway ?
cheers ,
ben
