Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Putting the Gloss into Resin

I've been bitten by the resin bug this week. In particular, the marbling bug. When I'm marbling, I look for a mould with a large surface to show off the marbling at its best and I didn't have to look any further than my big chunky wedge ring with the lovely flat top - it was an obvious choice!

But you can't just wear your ring straight after you've cast it. There's work to be done.... like trimming it to shape with a sharp knife.

And then sanding it to a smooth finish.... always with water to catch the fine resin dust.

A well trimmed ring won't need much sanding but there will still be resin powder in suspension so you have to keep rinsing off the white paste to prevent it from scratching the surface as you continue to sand.

And you need to rinse off the sandpaper frequently too so the paper doesn't clog up. When it starts to look like this with the grit flaking off, it's time for a new piece of sandpaper.

And the final step is the polishing. Marbling is seen at its best when the surface is highly polished so that means micro polishing with ultra fine sand papers. I work my way from 1500 grit all the way up to12000 grit. It's a lot of extra work but the high gloss finish is worth it!

So here are all the rings I've made this week - almost every colour of the rainbow!

This is the coolest ring shape ever - I just love how well it shows off the marbling. What do you think?

'Til next time.....








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