" Resin Swirl " FINS ....

General Discussion
1

I want to make some .

I thought I’d maybe do it like this …

After coating the glass [to lay it up on] , with a couple of layers of polyester laminating resin …

  1. lay down a few layers of clear 6oz cloth

  2. drip different coloured pigments on top

  3. SQUEEGUEE lightly , to get the ‘swirl’ effect [ Well, hopefully, anyway !]

  4. put more clear layers on top ,

  5. allow to "cure " a bit , before

  6. adding MORE clear layers …

…does that sound about right ?

Anyone who has made some , feel free to answer , please !

cheers ,

ben

2

Yes.

3

…can you expand on that a bit please , Billy ?

[like … photos , please ? and, did you use a roller , or a squeegee … or both ? ]

4

Resin swirl onto a good plain colour fabric your swirls, so that it will soak the colours well and you can do as many as you’d like before you get it right.

Then laminate that into the fin in the middle of all the clear layers either side…

Probably easier and will give a deeper effect?

L fresh

5

Or maybe rice paper so you get a semi-transparent effect?

(Fin photos tonight Chip, finished shaping the paddle a few hours ago)

6

“be the answer to your own question”…

…a good philosophy for ‘Swaylockians’ , perhaps ?

okay ,

I thought I would ‘resurrect’ this thread ,

because I had to do what this opening sentence said…

So… during the past weekend , Hicksy and I both did our first “resin swirl” fin panels.

I did mine with polyester resin ,

Grant did his with epoxy resin.

To get the ball rolling , here’s what I did for mine [I’ll leave Grant to detail his]…

First up , after the 33 layers of 6oz were all cut to size , I covered the work area with wax paper [ Mr. ‘Stingray’ , take note !]

Then , taped off my sheet of glass to lay the fin panel up on.

Then , mixed 250mls of polyester laminating resin .

got the pigments ready [green , light blue , and blue tint , and yellow tint]…

…then the phone rang … then hicksy was busy …

so , no more photos !

[My hands were too ‘gunky’ , and the polyester resin gelling too rapidly, for ME to be able to make the panel , and take photos at the same time]

So, a quick description , instead …

first , the laminating resin was brushed on the glass base

then , two clear layers [ie: unpigmented resin] were laid down

then , 3-5 layers 6oz put down at a time , then rollered with the ‘pre-swirled’ resin , until all the layers [33] were finished.

here is the result …

‘top’ of panel [‘outside edge’ of fin]…

Okay …so , here is what I would / will do differently next time …

different cups with different colours in them poured on the first , say , ten layers of the fin panel.

let it almost ‘gel’ , so when the roller hits it , it is not smudging.

then , lay up about 20+ clear layers on top of that .

Well , this was a good learning experience for me , anyway !

…and , when you see Hicksy’s , and read about the difference with using epoxy , I think you will be impressed . (I hope so !)

cheers ,

     ben



7

And , here’s what the inside edge of the green ‘swirl’ fin panel looks like …

8

…it should be even MORE translucent , once it is thinned and foiled , hopefully …

cheers ,  



   ben

9

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but… did you have a different swirl pattern every 3-5 layers (different cup)?

I think that is going to look totally sweet after you foil and gloss it.

10

1. lay down a few layers of clear 6oz

  1. drip different coloured pigments on top

  2. SQUEEGUE lightly , to get the ‘swirl’ effect [ Well, hopefully, anyway !]

  3. put more clear layers on top ,

  4. allow to "cure " a bit , before

  5. adding MORE clear layers …

What if you made 2 half thickness clear panels then put the colors on the panel like you would do on a swirled board except probably a lot less resin with more space between them, then sandwiched the panels and maybe moved them back and forth a little to swirl? Think it would match the way swirl boards look?

11

Chip, I’m currently experimenting a new technique: dropping the different colors here and there then using the air gun to blow the resin in random paths.

First try was actually a disaster: I forgot to lower the air pressure (it was set at maximum pressure) and coloured resin exploded all over the shop… But I learnt from that and with low pressure you get to obtain various spider-like effects. I’m gonna try and have a flat air-outing set on my air-gun instead of the small round hole and see what can be achieved.

12

Mental Note: you can’t link to images from a PM…

500×996 70.6 KB

13

yes , why can’t I see the photos ?!

ben

14

I can, can anyone else?

15

I can’t see them either

cecil

16

Right-click image, “Copy Image Location”. New browser tab (I LOVE FireFox).

Paste the URL into the address textbox. Press enter.

And get this.

<Edit to remove embedded rather wide image>

Someone messed up.

1196×350 35.8 KB

17

okay , I can see them now …

…now , can you please tell the good people here how epoxy worked for the resin swirl , compared to the tools I used for using polyester resin ?

cheers hicksy !

ben

18

Did the bleeding just natrually happen or did you do something special to make it do that?

19

Hey Kai

I put 4 layers of 5oz? down dry and drizzled it on in dots, three different colours, sort of filling an area with dots of colour and filling dry areas with different colours.

Put another 4 layers down and repeated the process until the thickness was right.

Then I weighed it down with a brick, squashing everything together.

Epoxy likes to run trough cloth as it takes a long time to set…what you are looking at is the bottom of the panel after everything has seeped through…

Hope that explains it better…



20

Ah yes, epoxy. The easy wetout is one of my favorite bonuses from epoxy. You got me thinking…