Ok did some cut laps blah blah blah same old stuff. so i get to putting in some gloss coat pinlines to cover my laps, mix up a few oz with some black pigment, catalyze at well over 2%. and the crap would not gell, it took over three hours before I could pull the tape. I have never had this happen before, Brand new can of gloss resin…I was using the same catalyst i always use and put some sanding resin in a cup and set it off just to make sure my catalyst didn’t go bad…I was not using UV cure with black pigment… WHAT THE HELL?
Resin pinlines are an art both in their process and end result. First question: what was the room temp? and, was it falling?
Our pinline guy (been doing resin pinlines since the late 60’s) shoots them off so hot, that I am always shocked when I watch. For a small paper drinking cup, I’ve seen him use 3cc on hot days and 5cc on cool days; the pinline always requires the immediate pulling of the tape (given no more than 2 minutes to rough-clean his brush). Gelling happens within a minute or two after pulling the tape.
I could never do any of my lams, hotcoats, or glosses as hot as he does, in fact I’ve always understood that excessive catalyzation inhibits the cure. For some reason he has found by trial-and-error that this is what works with such a high pigment content.
I am also amazed by how much pigment he uses, again it seems excessive. He always jokingly tells me that “you can’t use too much” and also says that some colors can tolerate large amounts better than others. Black “hides” so well that he uses less but I don’t think curing has to do with using less.
You can see our pinline guy, Larry Crow, on our website, just look for his name in the profiles section and there is a looped video of him doing it.
It sounds like you used too much pigment. If you hadn’t pulled the tape you probably could have brushed on another layer to set it. Pinlines are best laid in a temp controlled room where you can time everything down to the minute. It’s preferable to pigment pinline resin batches in larger quantities than for just one line. That way the pigment mix error factor is lower. Too much catalyst will also keep a line sticky. If a line remains too sticky, take it off rather than finish coat and risk having the whole line bleed under the coat. Black doesn’t need as much pigment as some colours. I sometimes used promoter to help set pinlines, if it was colder than say 65 degrees.
Howzit Skeletor, I don't use glossing resin for pin lines I use sanding resin thinned out with styrene. Sanding resin should kick off faster than gloss resin. Aloha,Kokua
Man was i mad at myself when i posted that. I didn;t realize that i should peel the tape before the resin even starts gelling. it makes sense because my tape had to sit under the gloss for so long i ended up with some messy spots where it looks like my pin is growing little black hairs where it ran under the tape (sanded off in a second though). I think i am going to stick with pinlining with sanding resin from now on. the room temp was upper 70’s (as it seems to always be in hawaii) so it definately was not that.
Kokua how much styrene do you thin the sanding resin with? 10%? 15? do you have any problems with running (styrene just eats the sticky part of even the best tape it seems like)