The milkiness is formed by thousands and thousands of micro bubbles, which will disappear as the epoxy begins to warms and thins out. If I were to go to my shop now the resin and harder would be thick as molasses and would be a milky white when mixed together. My epoxy is stored in may shop and I try to maintain 66 degrees most of the time (I probably haven't mentioned that I live in Minnesota where it's now 8F degrees and feels like -10F with the wind chill) I have to turn up the heat to about 80 degrees to get the shop climatized for doing epoxy work. am I correct that most bubbles come from the mixing of the two parts? if so why wouldn't you pour the 2 parts and place the one container in the water bath and mix while being heated."Īll the bath is for is to reduce the viscosity (making them thinner) of the two liquids allowing the trapped gases to easily escape. "I have read about using a warm bath to reduce the bubbles. to help the surfaces adhere better? or to remove small surface blemishes.
am I correct that most bubbles come from the mixing of the two parts? if so why wouldn't you pour the 2 parts and place the one container in the water bath and mix while being heated.ĭo you sand (320 grit) between pours. I have read about using a warm bath to reduce the bubbles. It self levels at 1/8", but can be layered Even if you're not interest in their product take a minute and browser their FAQs for some good tips and tricks that will work with most resins. This is not a deep pour or a molding epoxy it is used mostly by artists to put a protective, flexible, non-shrinking, non-toxic (it's food save) finish over their artwork and like some resins it is non-Here is the link if you're interested. I have no filiation with ArtResin, but I do like their product. If the light is in front of you or your project you may get a lot of glare.Īussie, If you only are doing clear pour then you probably wouldn't notice bleeding, bleeding comes from the added coloring, its viscosity is less then that of epoxy making it easier to be wicked into the wood grain. If you camera has one turn it off before taking picture of you epoxy work and use back light. McNan the red spot on your picture might be due to your camera having a redeye reduction function. Slowly and gently running the toothpick along the edge is usually enough to allow the epoxy to move to the edge. I use a toothpick to gently pop the bubbles and force the resin into comers. Speaking of walls and corners, you may have noticed that it's hard to move the resin into a corner or right up to the edge of the wall, this is caused by surface tension and small bubbles forming.
Then I cave the design, once that is done I use acrylic paint and a small brush, so that I can get into all of the corners and cover the walls from top to bottom. But, I usually start out sealing everything with a light coat of epoxy which I spread on with a gloved hand. What I use as a sealer will change depending on the wood's grain and the size of the cavity I am filling. So now, I always us the warm bath and seal my wood.
The resin wasn't shrinking it was seeping into the wood grain and the bubbles that occurred over night were created by air that was in the wood fiber and was displaced by the resin. After talking to ArtResin's tech support I had one of those aha moments. When I first started working with epoxy I was getting really frustrated with bubbles, I started doing the above process and I would get clear as glass results, but the next morning I would find some large bubbles and it appeared that my non-shrink epoxy shrunk. I use a product called ArtResin which is a flexible food safe non-shrinking epoxy which has about a 45 minute open time (working time) if you preheat your epoxy it my reduce the working time a little, but I haven't noticed it much. When I take the glasses out I make sure that I dry them before transferring the contents to my mixing cup where I slowly stir my resin and harder together. Then I place the two glasses into a warm water (between 85-90 degrees) bath for about 5-10 minutes, you have to make sure you don't get any water in to either glass, so much as a drop in either will ruin the batch. I've been able to reduce the number of bubbles in a couple of ways, first I have a couple of small glasses, one I measure and add my resin the other I measure and add my harder. I am certainly not an expert in working with epoxy and like you I've done my fare share of experimentation in which I've learned a few important lessons along the way First the formation of bubbles.