Just wondering. Anyone use anything besides specifically amnufactured surfboard pigments to color epoxy?
The reason I ask is I found bottles of left over fabric dye in my classroom. “Prang Aqua Textile Color.” Judging from the graphics, the stuff is from the 1960’s. No shit. I tested it on some veneer and I was looking at some left over epoxy in a cup I had just mixed (we’re talking like maybe a 1/4 oz), and out of curiosity I dipped a 1" chip brish into the dye and then mixed it into the resin. Much to my suprise (it is “aqua,” epoxy’s arch enemy, no?) the resin hardened like a rock. I’ve tested it 3 times now, including on cloth, on dyed wood and it always hardens.
I’m thinking it’s OK to use the dye to tint my epoxy (KK)…
Hastings Plastics has epoxy specific color. But I’ve used other stuff as well. Perhaps this is fine, just make sure the test comes out. Sounds like it did.
I've used various substances sold by my local art shop under the guise of "pigments" - some were opaque and some transparent. I did have one that foamed in epoxy - fortunately I did a test panel.
Having said that, one of the boards had some bonding issues between the lam and fillcoat. I've always thought it was due to poor preparation of the lam before filling, but now I wonder if it could have something to do with the pigment.
I did about four tests before using the pigment on the board. I tried it on wood and then brushed epoxy over. Then I tried it on wood, then sanded the wood, then put the pigment on the wood again and tried resin over it, to make sure if I sand through the color on the veneer I can add color back without it looking splotchy. I then started mixing the pigment directly into resin. I did it three times and every time it hardened fine. I even did two coats, to check for adhesion issues. Seems to work. It better, because now my board’s been wood dyed and lammed with the stuff!
Why? I found tons of the stuff, only blue and green…and it works. Why spend for “special” epoxy pigments?
That one contained water and probably surfactants. The surfactants probably caused the delam and the water (H2O) caused the foaming. Oxygen is very reactive.
If you do a search you might find a post from a year or so ago. One of the regular posters used paint pigment to tint the epoxy. It is the stuff that the paint stores use to color latex house paint. He said the colors were very vibrant and could be mixed for any combination or shade.
I never tried it but the pictures were pretty impressive.