Tips for beginning Artisan

[nedgo]

Hey guys, I've lurked this site mostly looking at peoples own posts of progress for their artisans. I finally decided to join now that I've been trying to pursue making my own and would eventually hope to share, and because I was looking for some info. I was looking for tips on resin. The mats I've been using for mold making have been fine, but the Amazing Clear Cast resin I've been trying to use to just make some random caps to start to learn just doesn't seem to cut it very well. I know most artisans don't exactly wanna give all their secrets away, and I can respect that, but sadly I live nowhere near anywhere that I could go and try and buy anything straight up and ask questions, so it's all purely online that I have to buy stuff and I've already spent about a solid 200 bucks on mats alone trialing and error-ing lol. So if any other artisan's out there have any tips for resin I would truly appreciate it. Thanks for any help, and I truly appreciate it, anything does anything help.


EDIT: I have a vacuum chamber so if that helps with choosing a solid resin I figured I should post it.

[hadekele]

Hey nedgo! Welcome to the forum!

Disclaimer: I am not a pro.

Amazing Clear Cast resin is okay stuff so I've heard. It's more directed for the audience that shops at Michaels and such.

As for other resins, I recommend looking up Smooth-Cast by Smooth-On. Another one you can look into is Alumilite.
There are plenty of other options on the market, and really, it is up to you, to decide which one you like the most.

With Smooth-On, usually they offer each line in three speeds. Fast, medium, slow. They correspond to the working and curing time of the resin.
The slower, the more time bubbles can rise to the top and pop, but in your case, you don't need to worry as you can degas with your vacuum chamber I believe. You just gotta allow room for the resin to rise up, and perhaps reservoirs if you're going to vacuum your resin.

Clear resin is more bubble prone.
Viscosity affects bubbles.

Talcum powder in your mold, then tapped out, will help the resin get in every nook and cranny.

Last but not least, a drug dealer digital scale from amazon will do wonders with resin!

[Wylte]

Laying in bed on painkillers, so apologies if this ends up a little disjointed.  Some mistakes we've made and lessons learned, in no particular order:

Been using Amazing Clear Cast, and it's just so slow.  Bubble-free, especially with pressure, but waiting 2 days for each cast adds up and it really starts to grind on you.  Have the faster Alumilite Clear variant on the way, will see what that's like.
On pressure - listen to what's been said in a bunch of other thread, and get a good pressure pot with the right clamps.  My FiL bought and helped build ours so I use it, but it's no fun knowing they are known to catastrophically fail.
Don't forget sprue holes in your silicone mold!  Done this twice, felt like an idiot.
On sculpts - take your time.  Make sure it'll fit between caps of different profiles, and preferably next to itself.  Pay attention to paths for bubbles to work themselves out, you don't want to have to coax bubbles out from under an important detail when your resin work time is running out.
The best piece of advice (that I wish my wife would take) is to make a practice sculpt or two before finalizing a design for making a mold.  This way you can catch flaws and possible hiccups before wasting silicone, resin, and time.

[nedgo]

Hey nedgo! Welcome to the forum!

Disclaimer: I am not a pro.

Amazing Clear Cast resin is okay stuff so I've heard. It's more directed for the audience that shops at Michaels and such.

As for other resins, I recommend looking up Smooth-Cast by Smooth-On. Another one you can look into is Alumilite.
There are plenty of other options on the market, and really, it is up to you, to decide which one you like the most.

With Smooth-On, usually they offer each line in three speeds. Fast, medium, slow. They correspond to the working and curing time of the resin.
The slower, the more time bubbles can rise to the top and pop, but in your case, you don't need to worry as you can degas with your vacuum chamber I believe. You just gotta allow room for the resin to rise up, and perhaps reservoirs if you're going to vacuum your resin.

Clear resin is more bubble prone.
Viscosity affects bubbles.

Talcum powder in your mold, then tapped out, will help the resin get in every nook and cranny.

Last but not least, a drug dealer digital scale from amazon will do wonders with resin!

Yeah, I've been looking at Allumilite and Smooth On specifically, seems like 100% the right ways to go. And yeah, I got Amazing because it is 100% the ONLY thing that's sold around me. It was a nice thing to use to start learning, but definitely need to up the game a little. I've kind of been thinking maybe Smooth On 326. Question tho, Pot Life when looking at resins is how long it takes for them to start hardening when mixed? Have you used any of the 320's before? Definitely haven't heard of the talcum powder thing before tho! Gonna try that! I do already have a scale. What is reservoirs tho? Thanks for the help man!

Laying in bed on painkillers, so apologies if this ends up a little disjointed.  Some mistakes we've made and lessons learned, in no particular order:

Been using Amazing Clear Cast, and it's just so slow.  Bubble-free, especially with pressure, but waiting 2 days for each cast adds up and it really starts to grind on you.  Have the faster Alumilite Clear variant on the way, will see what that's like.
On pressure - listen to what's been said in a bunch of other thread, and get a good pressure pot with the right clamps.  My FiL bought and helped build ours so I use it, but it's no fun knowing they are known to catastrophically fail.
Don't forget sprue holes in your silicone mold!  Done this twice, felt like an idiot.
On sculpts - take your time.  Make sure it'll fit between caps of different profiles, and preferably next to itself.  Pay attention to paths for bubbles to work themselves out, you don't want to have to coax bubbles out from under an important detail when your resin work time is running out.
The best piece of advice (that I wish my wife would take) is to make a practice sculpt or two before finalizing a design for making a mold.  This way you can catch flaws and possible hiccups before wasting silicone, resin, and time.

I'm definitely thinking about a pressure pot, I have the vacuum chamber, so would like to maybe be successful without having to get a pot as well. What are sprue holes? Are you talking about the keys you make in the mold? Thanks for the help man!

[hadekele]

For the reservoirs, this is purely just me thinking in my head, but if you were to vacuum resin, it'd rise before it'd drop back down, so you'd want some  "indents" to catch the excess so they cure in the indents instead of sliding down the side of the mold, onto your vacuum chamber, and such. More for clean up. I do not own, nor have I ever used a vacuum chamber, so it's just speculation.

As for sprue holes, When you make the cap, some people attach tooth picks to the corners of the cap so when you make a two part mold, you can pour the resin into the sprue holes from the top of the mold. In addition, it adds more area for air to escape from the resin.

[nedgo]

For the reservoirs, this is purely just me thinking in my head, but if you were to vacuum resin, it'd rise before it'd drop back down, so you'd want some  "indents" to catch the excess so they cure in the indents instead of sliding down the side of the mold, onto your vacuum chamber, and such. More for clean up. I do not own, nor have I ever used a vacuum chamber, so it's just speculation.

As for sprue holes, When you make the cap, some people attach tooth picks to the corners of the cap so when you make a two part mold, you can pour the resin into the sprue holes from the top of the mold. In addition, it adds more area for air to escape from the resin.

I haven't used the vacuum chamber with the mold in it. That's usually what people do for pressure pots. Vacuum chamber you pour the mixture together, put it in the vacuum chamber, it removes the bubbles, then you pour. And I thought that's what you meant by sprue holes. However when I did that before with amazing clear cast, the mixture was far too thick to go down the sprue holes, hoping maybe smooth on is a little more liquid so that would actually work. Thanks man!

[Midnight2shayla]

Hey nedgo! Welcome to the forum!

Disclaimer: I am not a pro.

Amazing Clear Cast resin is okay stuff so I've heard. It's more directed for the audience that shops at Michaels and such.

As for other resins, I recommend looking up Smooth-Cast by Smooth-On. Another one you can look into is Alumilite.
There are plenty of other options on the market, and really, it is up to you, to decide which one you like the most.

With Smooth-On, usually they offer each line in three speeds. Fast, medium, slow. They correspond to the working and curing time of the resin.
The slower, the more time bubbles can rise to the top and pop, but in your case, you don't need to worry as you can degas with your vacuum chamber I believe. You just gotta allow room for the resin to rise up, and perhaps reservoirs if you're going to vacuum your resin.

Clear resin is more bubble prone.
Viscosity affects bubbles.

Talcum powder in your mold, then tapped out, will help the resin get in every nook and cranny.

Last but not least, a drug dealer digital scale from amazon will do wonders with resin!

Yeah, I've been looking at Allumilite and Smooth On specifically, seems like 100% the right ways to go. And yeah, I got Amazing because it is 100% the ONLY thing that's sold around me. It was a nice thing to use to start learning, but definitely need to up the game a little. I've kind of been thinking maybe Smooth On 326. Question tho, Pot Life when looking at resins is how long it takes for them to start hardening when mixed? Have you used any of the 320's before? Definitely haven't heard of the talcum powder thing before tho! Gonna try that! I do already have a scale. What is reservoirs tho? Thanks for the help man!

Laying in bed on painkillers, so apologies if this ends up a little disjointed.  Some mistakes we've made and lessons learned, in no particular order:

Been using Amazing Clear Cast, and it's just so slow.  Bubble-free, especially with pressure, but waiting 2 days for each cast adds up and it really starts to grind on you.  Have the faster Alumilite Clear variant on the way, will see what that's like.
On pressure - listen to what's been said in a bunch of other thread, and get a good pressure pot with the right clamps.  My FiL bought and helped build ours so I use it, but it's no fun knowing they are known to catastrophically fail.
Don't forget sprue holes in your silicone mold!  Done this twice, felt like an idiot.
On sculpts - take your time.  Make sure it'll fit between caps of different profiles, and preferably next to itself.  Pay attention to paths for bubbles to work themselves out, you don't want to have to coax bubbles out from under an important detail when your resin work time is running out.
The best piece of advice (that I wish my wife would take) is to make a practice sculpt or two before finalizing a design for making a mold.  This way you can catch flaws and possible hiccups before wasting silicone, resin, and time.

I'm definitely thinking about a pressure pot, I have the vacuum chamber, so would like to maybe be successful without having to get a pot as well. What are sprue holes? Are you talking about the keys you make in the mold? Thanks for the help man!

Wife chiming in! We use sprue holes in our more difficult (read: pain in the ass) sculpts to make sure that air escapes. For example, one of our spideys had a nasty leg problem where a bubble was constantly taking the resin out, we forced a sprue in afterwards and its been fine ever since. Additionally, I use it as a way to know my cap is filled all the way with resin. If it leaks out the holes, I'm good. Yeah, it wastes a bit of resin, but hey it's better than a half-filled cap.

My advice would be if you ever make sculpts, draw and mold for the silicone. Try and smooth harsh undercuts, try and fill gaps, etc - it saves a lot of headache when getting the resin caps out later. Lastly, the info about the drug dealers scale is on-point - we ordered one from amazon (jewelers scale).