Lessons learned
Not all my castings turned out well. There were several spectacular failures that I've decided to call "learning experiences" (good judgement comes from experience -- experience comes from bad judgement). Some of the lessons were:
Mix the accent color(s) first. If the primary color gells before the other(s), you won't have a chance to swirl the colors together before the whole thing sets up.
Don't use powder paint as a tint. It foams when curing (even under pressure) and you wind up with a honeycombed mess.
Don't use PR dyes to color Alumilite. I tried Castin' Craft dyes (the package said for PR and epoxy resins). Result: foam, foam, foam. Also, don't use Alumilite dyes to color PR - the color changes when curing (green turned amber).
I had no real success applying vacuum to Alumilite Clear (before or after mixing). It boiled up to twice its original volume under vacuum, so that should have reduced the trapped air. Unfortunately, I still had to stir the mix afterwards, so I just reintroduced bubbles. Also the casts turned out a bit rubbery. I'm not sure that I didn't boil off an important ingredient.
Alumilite doesn't shine up as well as polyester resin, so I might switch back to PR - or put a CA finish over the turned blanks.
I need more practice to achieve my intended results. Some of my pours turned out just plain ugly:
I mean, what was I thinking? Actually, I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was trying to get a stirring-coffee effect. Instead, I wound up with blanks that look like somebody coughed up (or worse) a half-chewed moon pie. Egad.
The next cast, however, I mixed two blues and a white (with the same swirl technique) to produce these:
I was trying to make a blank that looked like a blue sky with some puffy white clouds, but got a hurricane instead (reminds me of the sorcerer's apprentice). Not what I had envisioned, but pretty nonetheless - at least I think so. Sometimes unintended results actually look better.
Later, I wanted to mix a light brown color so I combined red and green dyes. For some reason, the result was light gray. I added "crystal ice" mica powder and got silver. At that point I decided to pour "Slytherin House" colors. I mixed Emerald Isle mica powder, Black mica powder, green dye, and (because I thought the Emerald mica powder was a tad on the yellow side) a couple drops of blue die for the green. This was the result:
I think I'll have to order some Alumilite White to try making flat (not mica colored) colors. Likewise, I may stop at Illstreet composites the next time I'm in Charleston unless I can convince my fiberglass friends to get me some Silmar 41 cheap.
Yes, I've definitely been bitten by the casting bug.
Regards,
Eric
:worship::worship::worship:
