Crumbs and grumbles

Our town has it's own Hobby Lobby store now! It opened up on my Birthday last week. It is a lovely store that has tatting supplies as well as new options for resin casting. I picked up a new type of  silicon molding compound.

It's a liquid that solidifies and I think will be good for 3d castings. I have to make time later to try it out. I also picked up a new type of resin to test.

The box says it cures in 10 minutes and is sandable. I did get a test piece made. It won't work for what I want it, shuttle making, unless its for a flat shuttle. You literally have 3 minutes from start to finish. I used up half the bottle figuring that out. I tried reinforcing with the regular resin I use, but it don't bond with different resin types. So it's more for pieces you want to paint, like clay working.

Once again my littlest child has created havoc with my crafting supplies. This time, she completely emptied all but one box of my resin as well as my mold making supplies. She left me one bottle of hardener, but it does me no good since it's a 1:1 ratio mix and when half of the ingredients are missing, there's no point in hanging on to it. I'm just going to have to get a locking tool center/chests  unless I'm specifically working with it. You'd think a locked room door would be enough....

Then I went to work and when I got home, she struck again. I don't understand why she is so fascinated by it. I used what was salvaged to attach a jump ring to the back of the plates so they can be hung on the wall.Even that was 'disturbed'. When I went to check on them, there were plastic drinking cups that i use to mix resin, sitting on every one of them. They were only half cured, so I did my best to salvage these.

 My options now are basically sanding it flush then putting another very thin layer of clear resin on it to level it all out. Checking on the other standard shuttle shaped molds, I was happy to see they were left relatively intact. This one is small about the size of a clover shuttle. I'm going to have to shape the bottom to the angle needed for tensioning. White stickers need a colored background to stand out. Otherwise it blends in too well. The molding material is wearing out so it has a bunch of small glitches in it. I'll try to fill it in with more resin and use that piece to make a new mold.

But since I'm currently resin-less, it'll have to wait until after rent gets paid to I can restock.$40 worth of resin, wasted. Terrible waste of resources.

Back at it

Now that I finally picked up some more supplies..let's get to work!

It finally clicked in my mind on how to create a better stability with the longer shuttles. It was so obvious I could kick myself.  I also picked up a palate of decorating chalks to test for color tinting. I could just use the transparent dyes made for resin, but part of the fun is experimenting. I have used eyeshadows before and they work great, but sometimes you don't want it all sparkley.

I picked up this cute little cat mold on Etsy from Decoratewithdetails. Honey says it looks like a fox more than a cat. It doesn't matter it's a cute little charm maker and I've already made a few!

A week from now is my birthday! I've been putting off opening up my own Etsy shop with these shuttles I'm making. I have four done and since I'm basically talking all next week off, I'm going to make more. So as a heads up, so to speak, for those who read this blog, I'm going to list four shuttles at midnight on October 17th. The remainder will go 'live' that following Saturday. So if you're interested that's when to look for them. The link for the shop. Right now it only has a resin pendant in it, but I'll be adding more soon.

Lady Hoare Shuttle Tutorial

I received a request for information from Patricia Greninger on Facebook on how to go about making a Lady Hoare style tatting shuttle with resin. This would be the simplest of shuttles to make since it generally is a flat shuttle. These, you will find, are mostly carved out of wood.

The steps in making a mold are generally all the same. I buy most of my supplies online. Either on Etsy.com or Amazon.com, although my local Michael's Craft Store also carries most of the actual resin I use, in store. I cannot stress the importance of using gloves enough. Make sure you take the proper precautions when handling resin. Never use your fingers to test how far along your piece has cured, always use a toothpick or something similar for this. Good thing about the toothpick is that you can also use it to pop air bubble if they form in your working piece. Let's get started!

1. Find a template. In this case, I use a piece of cardboard to cut out the general shape of my piece.

2. Prepare molding compound. For all my first runs, I use Oyumaru. It's re-usable and resin friendly. Also please do not use latex based mold making compounds for resin making. They will leave a cloudy reside on your resin that is a major pain, if not, next to impossible to get rid of on your pieces.
Note: You can use the mold you make with this to pour your resin directly into. I make a secondary permanent mold for heavy/multiple casting.

3. Make the actual mold. If you are using cardboard, remember to put the smooth side down. No matter what type of molding material you use, it is designed to pick up detail. So unless you want the little dents added, smooth side down. Another good thing about Oyumaru, is that it is ready to use in about 10 minutes! You can also speed up the time by cooling it in your freezer (for those of us who are impatient).

4. This step, I use UV curing resin and my newly acquired UV lamp. It perfect for my trial runs because I can find out in a few minutes verses a day, if my mold turned out right. If you are comfortable with using regular resin then go ahead. You can skip this trial run stage.

I added some paint to give it some color

5. After verifying my temporary mold worked out, I make a permanent mold out of Mold Easy. I use the sanded version of a piece made with the temporary mold for this. I do this because if I ever want to make another or more than one at a time, I can without having to do all the above steps again.

I will add another layer of UV resin to level it out, one side at a time

6. Mix your resin according to it's directions and have at it! You can add embellishments like stickers or glitter to your resin.
Please Note:
When you do this, it's highly recommended ( I should just say required) you lay down a THIN layer of clear resin and let it cure to a gummy stage before adding embellishments. Otherwise the pieces can sink to the bottom and protrude on the other side like bumps. If you want a colored background, you do the thin clear layer so you can see your embellishments when it is complete, and that you are working in reverse. The bottom of the mold is the top of the finished product. Also keep in mind that the more embellishments you add, the longer it takes the resin to cure. Make sure to check on your piece often, you don't want air bubbles in them by accident. Air bubbles can swiss cheese your piece.

7. Finishing

No matter how good you become at pouring the resin, you will always have to do some filing/sanding to smooth off the edges. This over flow of resin is called "flash". When getting into the smaller corners, I prefer to use a very thin round file and hand file it down. This way you don't end up taking off more than you intended. Or if you are using a rotary tool, use the smallest round head you can find.
I've looked at numerous YouTube videos and picked up a lot of tips on how to give a 'finished polished' look to my pieces. I've narrowed it down to two of the easiest. For smooth pieces, I just pour another thin clear layer of resin on the top. It gives it the "shiny look". For those that have indents, I use a spray.

One thing to keep in mind, it's best to work in layers. This way you actually end up wasting less product. There's no bigger disappointment than working hard and waiting all that time only to find your piece doesn't turn out the way you hoped. With layering, you are able to maintain a better control on what's going on and fix small mistakes(air bubbles, sticker placements, ect). It's also easier to give depth to multidimensional castings.