Blog entry No1
There are many ways in which to avoid bubbles in your resin jewellery, I'm going to tell you my tried and tested ways, lets first talk about why and how they appear. Knowing what creates the bubbles can help us avoid them.
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The main cause of bubbles in resin is the viscosity of your resin! If your resin is quite thick, it is prone to bubbles. So firstly, the best thing to do is select the appropriate resin for your craft, for jewellery I use Coat-it resin from resin8.
The best way to prepare for a nice runny resin is to warm part A of your epoxy resin. Sometimes if your resin has sat for too long and become cold it can crystallise, this is quite normal! To fix this I fill a jug with recently boiled water and pop my bottle of Part A inside for about 15 minutes, until I can see the resin is lovely and runny! (You can do this more then once if your bottle is especially crystallised! The chilly U.K weather isn't resins best friend!)
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Now the next thing that can cause bubbles to appear is the way in which you mix your resin. Once you have poured part A & B mix slowly, in one direction and use either a silicone or acrylic mixing stick. Wood is porous and can cause bubbles in your resin.
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Now really you should be pretty good to go if you have covered you pouring, warming and mixing properly. However those pesky air bubbles can still appear! I do suggest as per my Domestiká course to go 'bubble fishing' and use a lolly stick to fish out any bubbles you see once you have poured into your moulds, you can also use a heat source to pop any of the surface but you need to do so with caution. Too much heat from either a heat gun or lighter can cause the resin to fuse with your mould.
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Finally, my very last tip would be to use a pre domed effect mould. With no sharp edges for bubbles to get trapped, these moulds will give you a beautiful, professional finish with little to no bubbles if you prepare your resin in the suggest way above. You can find many of these pre domed effect moulds on my website.
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I hope this blog posts helped any bubble prone jewellers!
Mia x