Hi, I just did a small test to see if I could do some swirls when laminating. Here’s what happened: I mixed ready yellow and red colors in seperate cups, the pour the yellow into the red resin. The yellow sinks?! I try to stir it ligtly once, the pour it on the cloth. No yellow to be seen anywhere. I then try it the other way around, mix a new batch, the pour the red into the yellow. Yup, the red floats. However, this time it works out nicely on the cloth with a really small amount of red in yellow. Still it looks like red/orange was the main color after I squeegeed it. Anything like this ever happened to you? Ok, so this is epoxy resin. Would that really make a difference? regards, Håvard
Havard: I’m thinking that the pigmenting of epoxy resin and polyester resins may not be so closely related. I have NO epoxy experience. I’d first look at what types of pigments you are using, thick paste type? or thinned tints? To get the swirls you are looking for you need to get the 2nd color suspended and off the bottom of the cup. The unmixed solid colors that hit the cloth first (in conventional polyester lams) that give you the contrast you are after. Once you hit the flats and rails with the squeegee you are blending colors. Likewise the longer the mix sits in the pot the more color blending you get.I like to mix up enough of my fill color to split it into 2 pours or one big batch with several pour lines instead of a just a center pour. (the link to one I did shows 3 pour lines down the bottom to keep the yellow from turning to mud while pushing resin around) I’m waiting to hear about how this epoxy color job goes, I’ve got an opaque one to do as soon as I can figure it out. Tom S. http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/Detailed/435.html
Seems like it would be harder to do a swirl with epoxy resins. Color yeah, swirl I don’t know. Because with the poly resin you have to cat. the colors. Which helps I think to keep them seperated. Can’t really do that with the epoxy resins, or so it would seem. Tom, in case you didn’t see it when I posted it way back, Thanks heaps for the template!! I should be turning one out on it shortly. Thanks again. ed
Ed: Glad you could make use of it, please let me know how that outline works for you. Are you doing it in Epoxy or Poly? Tom S.
The colors are pigments suspended in epoxy resin. Actually, the last one I did was not that bad, very much like the red/yellow sample you showed me, Tom. But since the red floats I think I guess I just have to do it really slowly, mixing small batches, pour the red on top of the yellow, stir lightly and pour one stripe, mix new batch, etc. Because I will pour off the red fisrt when I start to pour I think this is the way it has to be done. Why the red floats is beyond me, I guess the yellow pigment must be heavier then the resin or the red lighter or something. regards, Håvard
You have to visualize what you are trying to get and what colors do when they blend.We talked about this in depth a while ago and its archived…hard to explain.I talked Tom Sterne through it over the phone (his)…that was a costly glass job but lots of fun. R. Brucker