Messy workshop

Resin Casting – I Finally Learned How!

One of items on my personal check list was to learn how to cast resin, call it art school back log. My husband casts plastic as part of his work and I’ve always been curious to do it myself. I have watched Hubs cast a million different pieces, it seems but never gave it a try. That all changed recently.

Messy resin workshop

Husband was cold casting metal business cards for an event so I pitched in to help him mix. Cold casting metal entails mixing metal powder into a chemical, catalyzed plastic and allowing it to set up and become solid.

To make parts in resin you need two chemical parts of liquid to make the resin based plastic. Mixing the two parts starts a chemical reaction that forms the plastic; the reaction is really fast. The liquid solidifies to a point where it doesn’t pour and you are kind of out of luck at that point. You have around 5-10 minutes to get the resin into a mold before it is no longer workable.  Turns out, I like to mix the resin a little too long but everything worked out in the end. 

There are a couple of really cool tricks to get your resin bubble free, but they are expensive. The best method of removing air bubbles is pressure casting – you essentially put your piece in a pressure cooker. The pot for pressure casting resin is a lot fancier than, but most people don’t have the resources to acquire the equipment unless they do pressure casting often.