Finally warming up!

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elody21

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Well it is time to order another gallon of resin! It needs to be at least 60 for me to deal with it. I use and acrylic box, a wire rack and a small heater to place them in after they are mixed or I would have to wait until it is much warmer!
Has anyone really read the dangers of resin? :([V][xx(]. I did this winter and am glad I take so many precautions![:0] BUT, it will not stop me from playing with it. My porch is raised up and I bet the neighbors cannot figure out what the #@? I am doing with gloves and an odor mask pouring and mixing!! I also mix on a decated warming tray when it is chilly. It actually works pretty well to hurry thing along. I also read it is supposed to help reduse inner bubbles.
My husband ran a 60 foot air hose from the basement to the porch when I use the pressure pot. I actually have not had very good luck with the pot? I get the amount of pressure but the blanks don't seem to want to harden. I know many use it and have had great success[?] I haven't the heart to tell my hubby after everything he went through to get it set up.
Alice
 
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Alice,
Have you considered putting the casting trays in the pot, and putting the pot on a sunny spot on your porch? With as dark as the pots are, they heat up pretty quickly (DAMHIKT).
 
Sounds great Jim but the porch is dead north! There is almost no warm sun until summer. What if I turned the heater towards the pot? I was afraid it would blow up or something! Alice
 
I tried casting some snake skins last summer (late summer in DC, which means 90+ degrees and direct sunlight) using the pot as a convenient storage means. I used my normal amount of catalyst (which was my first mistake), and some Cocobolo as stand-offs (my favorite wood, and I have a lot of cut-offs!). The cocobolo bled throughout the casting, and the combination of the heat from the sun hitting the open pot and the (what I now presume was) excessive catalyst caused a) the skins to melt into the surrounding resin, and b) the resin to crack. I'm not sure what made things worse, the heat from the sun hitting the pot, or the extra catalyst, but I'm not going to use that combination again. Next time, I think I'll only use a few drops of the resin.
 
Alice I am glad to see that you are concerned about using Resin safely. Between Flameable/ Corresive/ and Explosive these products should be handled with care. Most of the Catalyst is also very Flameable.
I just spent some time cleaning up some of the more volatile
stuff that was hanging out in the shop. It was starting to look like a lab instead of a shop.
 
Boy, if you guys knew I just cast the resin in my basement[:0]

Like the others, I would heat the pot some, but not too much. Too much heat is bad as it would probably harden too fast and crack.
I once ordered some blanks that were still a bit soft. put them into the toaster oven on 200 for about 15 minutes and they hardened up the rest of the way. I may try in the futiure to add maybe one or two drops per ounce and then put the tray into the oven on 200 and see if I can't just harden the stuff using mostly heat only. If too much hardener makes it brittle, maybe very little hardener will keep them fairly stable.
 
I am not sure if this will work or not but it has to be safer than a toaster. Try putting your pot on a regular heating pad. good source of heat and controllable to some extent.
 
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