September 29, 2011

Test drive results

Thank you for reading and for your words of encouragement. ^_^
After 10 days of hard labor in the real world, here is how the Magic Glos resin held up.
There is some scuffing on it. I turned the pendant so the light can catch it. It's not too noticeable unless you were looking for it. I think buffing should take care of it since they are surface scuffs and not deep.
This other side had a larger deeper gash near the top. Buffing may smooth it out a bit but it won't go away without adding more of the resin into it. Now if you are just holding it in your hand in say, normal sunlight, the scuffs and scratches are not really noticeable. However if you hold it up to a set light source, like a light bulb, yes the imperfections can be easily picked out. The glitter in the resin helps to mask the thin scratches. I had this pendant attached to my work keychain. So in addition to the regular keys, there is also a craftsman folding knife/boxcutter, and a treadmill safety key with a magnet attached to it. They were tossed carelessly on the floor when I came home after a very long day at work. I'm building fitness equipment so I was constantly pulling the key ring with everything in and out and passing to my coworkers. In other words, it got alot of abuse. My opinion on use: jewelry only. I doubt most necklaces will go out and be abused in the same manner a keychain would. Tomorrow is my 1st day off in almost 2 weeks, so assuming I get enough rest, I'll give the Easy Cast a run and make some more test subjects with that.

September 19, 2011

Magic Glos pendant

Before:

I popped them out of the mold this afternoon and sanded down the sides to get a smooth finish. They are a bit concaved, as I ran out of the resin, so I couldn't level them completely.

This is the front side or the more beveled part. It does have a dome feel to it.
The back side where it is more level, er, concave. Wire wrapping took a long time for me to do. Not bad for a first attempt right?I do like how the bezel looks like a ribbon though. That was pure coincidence on my part.
One thing I do like about it is that you can wear as a pendant with either side showing. The flat side has more glitter and that pesky little pearl that kept wanting to float away. The other side show the tatting more since it was in the layer closest to the bottom of the mold. You can still see the pearl bead but it's more subtle.The wire I used is florist wire since it was the only thing I had on hand. It doesn't even have a gauge on it, so I can't tell you how thick or thin the wire is. But it is somewhat thin, so this won't hold up to daily wear. Once in a while should be fine though. I didn't drill holes in them like originally planned because I placed both the tatting and the beads too close to the tops to safely punch a hole through.The red music note has yet to be wrapped. I'm checking out tutorials on YouTube to see how else I can wrap the oval one easier. I may pick up some more of this resin this weekend to make some more. It all depends on how I'm feeling after the county fair and work.

September 18, 2011

One bottle emptied


This little cutie is going to be a pin for me. I got carried away with the glitter. Me and glitter do not mix.

This cleft note is the second resin attempt I had. Again, I got carried away with the glitter. I wanted to make sure the top tatted piece was completely encased. So I added too much of the resin and it leaked over. No problem, it can be sanded down later. I was planning on sanding off some of the glitter in the back. Then I will add more of the resin to level it out. I hope that by doing this it will allow me to remove some of that glitter. Behind it is one of the keychains I'm making. I took it easy with the glitter only because I added it by brush. This is the only way I can use the stuff without getting out of hand. I also added some beads to it. The round pearl one was a bit of a headache as it kept wanting to float away. I had to hold it til the resin set then add another layer. Even then it kept wanting to move out of position.

This is another cleft note with some flat beads. These were alot darker before I added them to the mold. They seem to have gotten more transparent for whatever reason. Once I get some measuring cups I'll use the Easy Cast and see if the problem is the beads or the resin being used.

Expanding on the idea


Here's a sneak peek at the final resin project for now. I've used up half the bottle so far. The hanging hearts are Gina Butlers and are dipped in the resin to see how it holds up as an ornament stiffener. The Ezbob has been adapted to a mold. I wanted something with an opening for an edging. A sort of micro bracelet or large circular pendant. That little bat(all I have on the designers name is Abby) in the background was for me to use as a pin on my lanyard at work, hence the little pin in the picture. I got carried away with the glitter again, it seems I'm just not safe around that stuff.

Music

I took a trip to Joann's Fabric to pick up those mold trays and another bottle of the UV resin (just in case I get carried away), only to find out they no longer carry it in store. It is available online. Only mildly disappointing since Micheal's Craft Store is literally on the next block so I went there. They in turn had a section of Lisa Pavelka paraphernalia except the molding trays. The resin cost the same as what I paid on ebay if you take into account the shipping costs, so now I at least have a local connection for this resin. I also found the Easy Cast 2part epoxy there so if I ever feel like mixing or going harder, I have options. I did pick up a cool looking faceted pendant package thinking it was a mold, but nope, it was the actual pendants. Oh well another trip back to Micheal's tomorrow, I go. One of the workers there suggested I try a bead shop for my molds, but I think I'll just go online and buy them. I'll have fun making molds out of stuff around the house for now. Like for this little puppy, I'm using a bead cap to make the pendant.


I wanted to get frisky a bit and added some glitter. Maybe I should have used less as the tatting is getting lost in the party. The pattern is Sherry Pence's aka Lady Shuttle Maker and the thread is some size 30 I dyed earlier this year, or maybe it was last year...(mind trailing away)
I would have poured it into the bottom only that the inner ring would have left the tatting smushed.

First attempt

For the UV resin I used Lisa Pavelka's Magic Glos. You can find it online and I found out my local JoAnn's fabrics carries it as well. I purchased the 1 ounce bottle which depending on where you find it will run between $8 to $12 USD.

I went through my scrap bag of tatting pieces and pulled out a simple one to use. For this, it's the inner motif to Frivole's Quatrain pattern. It was tatted using Yarnplayer's Celery thread size 80. I also incorporated some random seed beads that I thought would enhance the piece. I did not have any regular molds to use. I just emptied out a section of one of my bead holders and used that as a template to start this. I did allow it to cure long enough to be able to pull the base out but it did have some texture transfer from the plastic casing. The amount used in layering varied because, well frankly, I don't know what I'm doing. Trial and error at work here.
This is the second layer where I placed the actual tatting in it. You can see where the texture transfer over in the bottom right hand corner. This will be fixed later on.
Now I was not working on a level work surface so one side became fully coated while the other only partially. I wanted to include the side views so you can see how thin the layers of resin are as they cure. I let in sit in full sunlight for roughly 5 minutes between layering. One thing I want to point out, light colors do not do well with this. The tend to go clear as well. In the thread there is a section where the light green is almost white. As you can see below, the pale green went completely transparent as well and the core thread, which just happens to be darker, shows through. That is not a bare thread. The double stitches can barely be made out. This is where I added a few beads. I should have made sure they were all the same size to reduce the layers I would have to add later. That glittering effect is still the texture transfer from the bead box. One other thing is that I did not catch all the air bubbles. I did get alot of them, but I think that it was completely my fault. After I was done squeezing the bottle I let some air be sucked back in. Naturally when you squeeze again that air is going to come out as well. I simply pushed the bubbles to the side and popped them there in future layers.
You can see where it is thicker on the bottom than the top. This is what happens when you don't have a level work surface! But this little problem was self correcting in the next step. I flipped it over and wanted to take care of the texturing from before. I only added a small bit of the liquid and it spread it self out. Self leveling and filling in the grooves. I liked that part of it. I only had a few bubbles this time, as I learned to not squeeze so hard on the bottle by now.
I did have to go and push some of the liquid out to the sides to make sure the thinner section received the majority of it to level it out a little bit. The above shot was taken indoors out of the sunlight so you can better see the transparency effect this gloss has on lighter threads.















At layer 7 it looks like ice melting a bit doesn't it? Now the website from the manufacturer stated that this can be drilled, sanded, baked, and so on. I'm going to put that to the test. I'm going to first sand the sides off to give it a bit of a smoother finish with some 100 grit sandpaper. Then I will go back and depended on the final shape I get, drill a small hole into it so I can add a jump ring. I could have probably added the ring in layer 4 or 5, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead at the time. I really wish I could have found my rotatory tool (Dremel) because hand sanding sucks for me. I went ahead and scratched the back surface to give a contrast. The small green beads did not show up too well. Total time making this: 3 hours including sanding time. I'm not going to attempt to drill a hole until I can locate my dremel tool. In case you are wondering, yes it does dry to a hard plastic. The center was a bit gel-ly feeling but that it turns out is because previous layers still had a bit of curing to do. No problem, I just left it exposed to sunlight longer, and it turned hard pretty quickly.