Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Searching for resin that works

Published
by
Camille
on March 24, 2007
in casting, moldmaking and resin
. 2 Comments

Last month I bought some resin from MrArt.com. I looked through the reviews and settled on Environmental Tech Castin’ Craft Clear Casting Resin because it had a perfect 5 star score and a lot of favorable comments. I expected the best, but what I got was less than sub par.

They sent me a really old can (resin has a shelf life of 6 months at best). The top inch or so was completely solidified, rendering the product unusable. After I sent it back, I recieved a second container that looked promising enough.

I followed the directions and added the necessary number of drops of catalyst for my casting (which was difficult to determine due to confusing directions) and after several days the cast still had not set up completely and was too sticky to handle. I even experimented with adding more and less catalyst and it still refused to harden. I was unable to produce any usable castings after about 6 tries.

resin casting

I really have no way of knowing if this was another old can of resin, or if the product was really that bad.

I did manage to find a product that I’m happy with. The silicone mold making compound and resin from IllusEffects Studios works great. The directions were easy to follow, the mold and castings turned out perfectly, and I will buy from them again. Thanks!

Combining Lumina and Resin

Published
by
Camille
on March 21, 2007
in Clay Jewelry, casting, moldmaking and resin
. 4 Comments

Since I was somewhat recently introduced to Lumina Clay, I’ve been experimenting with flowers, but I hope to start working with other subjects as I become more familiar with the clay. Looking through my older work at camillecampos.com has inspired me to vary my work more.

I’ve started combining the strengths of different materials to better translate my ideas into my art. For example, Lumina is durable and flexible when thin, but Sculpy can create such interesting effects and lends itself better to sculpture. Resin is my third material of choice and as it is very strong, may be painted, sanded, and used along with a mold.

Here is a necklace I’ve just finished. I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with how it came out, but it was a valuable experiment.

ranunculus necklace

Here are the original paper clay pieces. It was a little tricky setting these up to be made into a necklace, because I couldn’t test it out as a whole until I cast it in resin as the original pieces were too delicate.

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