Hi.
I’m about to attempt my second resin swirl. Yellow is the primary color and red will be swirled into the yellow.
In my first attempt of a resin swirl (red & white) the colors blended when I used the squeegie. Can any body offer me advice on the best way to remove excess resin from the cloth while maintaining a visible separation of the colors.
Thanks guys
Brian (Ireland)
Pour the colors separate, or use 5 or 6 smaller combined colors batches when you laminate. Another trick I’ve seen lately on the Tudor boards is to pour a solid color squeegee pull in an irregular shape then put a batch of swirled color next to it and pull. First color to hit foam wins. You get a solid patches of color, with irregular swirl right next to it. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks cool.
It all depends on what design you are looking for. You say you want a swirl…well in my book a swirl is a blending of the colors. If you want it more geometric and well defined in color, then pour the colors on separate and then pull, or when you put your colors together in the lam resin bucket just dump them in pretty quick and don’t mix. That way the colors will come out in a solid flow instead of a rainbow dream of havenly ice creamy swirl…what?
-Jay
IMHO (only done it once, besides the countless test panels) some colors are easier than others. Red and white sound like a bad idea(blended light red/pink uncool) Red/yellow is better(orange is cool). And as cleanlines said, don’t f¤#k around with the resin too much. Mix the batches, pour into one cup, stir slightly (one round is enough), pour on glass, let it sit for a little while and soak in then firmly pull the resin off with the squeegee. Only work each area once with the squeegee to prevent disturbing the colors. As the little bird said, first color to the foam/glass wins.
Try it on som test panels to see what works best for you.
Good luck!
regards,
Håvard
Another trick I’ve disovered is using several different (clean) squeegees in the laminating process. This keeps the resin-on-squeegee buildup down, and is a lot neater than wiping off the squeegee with a gloved (or not!) hand, which can drip onto the board and other such unpleasantries. I cut up one of those larger squeegees into a few small ones, and keep them at the ready when doing a swirl.
Good point! I had actually forgotten about that. I used glassfiber scraps to clean up my squeegee while doing swirls, but having a few clean ones around sure must be better.
regards,
Håvard
You could do an “acid splash” style of swirl. This concept relies on the concept of the resin setting color into the cloth. As alluded-to above, you need to realize that when a color hits the cloth “that’s it”, it does not matter what color you pour on top, it will stay the original color- you have to see it to believe it. Okay here goes: Decide which color is to be your primary. I imagine yellow is yours. Ideally, this yellow works best if it is tint (translucent) rather than the opaque stuff. If I could suggest a color scheme, it would run like this; intense yelllow, pale yellow, red, and clear. Working with alomst double the amount of resin used for a clear lamination., divide up your batch into four containers. Primary is about 50 percent of your batch, then the pale yellow, red and clear could be equally divided amongst the remainder of the resin. If you are REALLY good at glassing you would: catalyze, divide, pigment, recombine, then pour the batch. If you are still shaky, then you will have to: divide, pigment, catalyze (each mini-batch), recombine, then pour. With that said, divide up your clear resin into the four suggested parts. Color each part. NOW the hard part. RECOMBINE the mini-batches into the primary color bucket. Do this carefully. A first-timer should pour dead center and slowly, each successive mini batch. You will see a wierd bubbble of each new color grow in the primary’s bucket. NOW, carefully take a stick and plunge vertically no more that a few times (i’d say about three times for this particular color run; triangle pattern). Do not overdo this! NOTE: all this stuff after catalyzing much be done in the space of about one minute. Work carefully and deliberately. The POUR. The shape of your pour will establish the personality of the swirl Pour a liberal, wide strip down the stringer; do not run off the ends of the board. Instead, go in a dogbone pattern back upon itself. Pour a liberal wide strip along both rails; do not let much/any go off the rail (no tiger stripes on this attempt; more advanced stuff later). Set the bucket down. CAREFULLY pick up the dry cloth lap and fold it onto the pours along the bottom/rails. This will help to set the color in the rails so they do not turn into mud. Drop the laps back down. Now squeegee the center pour “road grader” style row by row until you converge onto the rail pours. Let your excess go over the edge now. Remember that the resin already on the rails “sets” them in that color. Remove your excess and tuck your laps in. Two tips: first work deliberately; altthough the color sets into th cloth, minimize the number of strokes as the intensity of the set colors will start to wane. Second, it does not hurt to have a standy batch of CLEAR RESIN to go over your entire creation in case you run dry. In the finished product, if you see through the weave, that is, through the colored cloth, then it was either too dry, hit too much, or catalyzed too slow. Make mental notes. It may be worthwhile to practice this mentally, then do a dry run right before throwing the batch. Too many times, I’ve wasted 30 seconds looking for that stick or whatever, that I just had… PLEASE note that this is just ONE of the ways to do it and once mastered, there are a TON of other techniques that I can only describe as “advanced, but lots of fun”. Lastly, the nice thing about swirls, is that there is no “right” answer.; so get into it; and have fun. Hope this helps.
Excellent description…Thank you.
Hey Guys.
Thanks a million for all the advice and thanks especially to PlusOneShaper for all the time and effort put into your mail. I’m rushing out door now but I’ll be reading it again on monday. Looks liek great advice.
Will post a pic of this board in the next 4 weeks or so in the 7-8ft section.
Enjoy the weekend
Hey PlusOne you forgot about having to stir the resin counterclockwise when in Australia.Just KIdding…that was a great description. RB
I want to do a light resin swirl on the bottom wrapping the rail over on to the top. My question is, If I do the bottom and the swirl first, Wont the color I do on the top of the board cover the swirl I wrapped around the rail when I glassed the bottom? Or is it ok to glass the top first?
…you shoulda match the colors
ex.: Blue on the bottom, Yellow on the deck…what rail color you ll obtain? kind of Green
You didn’t mention if you wanted to do a swirl on the deck or not. If you are just doing the
bottom and rails you can use part of your batch to throw some color on the hanging rail laps.
If you want to do the deck but don’t want any interference from the bottom, you can do a
deck inlay. This is when the deck lam (single layer) will just meet or slightly overlap onto the
bottom rail lap (1/8" or so) After this kicks you can smooth the seam down and glass your
deck with one more layer using clear resin and tuck the laps onto the bottom.
Hope this helps,
George
I want to do a light resin swirl on the bottom wrapping the rail over on to the top. My question is, If I do the bottom and the swirl first, Wont the color I do on the top of the board cover the swirl I wrapped around the rail when I glassed the bottom? Or is it ok to glass the top first?
if you want to do a different color on the deck i would recommend a “foam stain” rather than an inlay. just tape off the lap on the deck of the board and squeegee a thin layer of colored resin onto the raw foam . let the resin kick , remove the tape and glass the deck with clear resin.
i think that an acid splash is easier if you use three or four colors. pour a larger than usual batch of resin and separate out three or four small amounts (about two-three ounces each). mix pigment into each smaller portion of resin (enough to make the color opaque in the smaller batches) and catalyze each small cup. then catalyze the large batch of resin (which is still clear). pour each small cup of colored resin into the large (clear) bucket in a circular motion. DO NOT MIX the bucket once colors are added. SLOWLY pour a very generous amount of the resin onto the cloth going along the stringer in one direction then come back up the board pouring resin about an inch away from your first pour. let the resin flow and run off the board. squeegee off the excess resin while saturating the rest of the cloth.
white will be the resulting base color (from the foam and clear resin) leaving very defined “swirls” or “splashes” of the colors you mixed in the smaller batches. it usually gives a nice effect like the inside of a marble.
this is just my take but has always worked very well for me. i dont have any pics of recent examples but here is a older one i posted on a different thread, this is a good example of what will happen if you dont pour enough resin onto the cloth on your first pour. the more you work the resin the more color blurring you will have.
sorry to hijack but how does this process differ if im using epoxy?
dog
Thanks, I like the idea about the deck inlay. Thanks to all who responded I didnt realize ther are so may out there, See ya at the “Bu”
no…but you won’t be able to get that super polished gloss coat.
i know i cant get a super polished gloss from epoxy but what about swirling different colours in the lam, do i do the process exactly the same as with poly resin?
thanks
i know i cant get a super polished gloss from epoxy but what about swirling different colours in the lam, do i do the process exactly the same as with poly resin?
thanks
You can so totally massively completely way get a super polished gloss shiny finish from epoxy. Don’t know why I worded it that way – musta been the Diet Coke!
Search for posts by maxmercy – a few months ago he tried that gloss epoxy from surfsource, and just rocked an unreal gloss.
cheers etmo, unfortunatly im in the Uk and the only suppliers are seabase for epoxy, they do RR and surfsource but claim not to sell the gloss epoxy. what would need to be different to make it a gloss epoxy?
cheers etmo, unfortunatly im in the Uk and the only suppliers are seabase for epoxy, they do RR and surfsource but claim not to sell the gloss epoxy. what would need to be different to make it a gloss epoxy?
I’m sorry – didn’t even notice that you were overseas. I imagine for the price of shipping you could buy a football team…
I don’t know what magic juju is in the chemistry (if any; maybe just thinking it’ll should be glossy caused maxmercy to put forth extreme effort, thus guaranteeing great results?) – maybe one of the wizards will chime in.
