alumilite and swirl colors?

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mywoodshopca

mywoodshopca

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Just started doing some tests on some worthless woods I have and not pleased with the colors.

The place I bought the alumilite at didnt have any of the alumilite dyes in stock. I tried a resin casting dye set from michaels and it just turned it one solid color and a very flat thick DULL color..

Do you mix 2 seperate batches up when doing your swirls?

What do I need to do to get the metallic looking swirls in a few colors?

Thanks Jason
 
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Make sure the dyes aren't waterbased also or they won't work with alumilite. I think you will get the effect your looking for with a mica powder.
 
Jason,

PearlEx is wonderful stuff. It gives nice swirl by itself. But if you "kick it up a notch" by mixing multiple, slightly different mixes you get even better look/depth.

This blank is four mixes, two green and two yellow mixed together.
attachment.jpg


Here is the finished pen
attachment.jpg


GK


mywoodshopca said:
Just started doing some tests on some worthless woods I have and not pleased with the colors.

The place I bought the alumilite at didnt have any of the alumilite dyes in stock. I tried a resin casting dye set from michaels and it just turned it one solid color and a very flat thick DULL color..

Do you mix 2 seperate batches up when doing your swirls?

What do I need to do to get the metallic looking swirls in a few colors?

Thanks Jason
Click to expand...
 
Wait until one part is starting to thicken and then mix in the new part. Timing is "pure luck" (at least on my part).

With Alumilite I would start with one minute difference between mixing your first color and your second color.

GK
 
gketell said:
Wait until one part is starting to thicken and then mix in the new part. Timing is "pure luck" (at least on my part).

With Alumilite I would start with one minute difference between mixing your first color and your second color.

GK
Click to expand...
Greg, I tend to let both cups gel a bit and then pour it, it seems to work pretty well.
 
I won't argue. Your blanks are gorgeous. Since mine are always "Pure luck" I would go with what works.

Just a fair warning for folks trying this for the first time: by the time you notice it gelling, you have about 45 seconds before it clumps up. The pour above, as soon as I noticed it gelling we mixed and poured the yellow and by the time the it was mixed and poured the green was solidifying so I got that clumping you see.

GK
GK
 
I would guess that it would depend on your definition of "a bit". Gel too long and it will be too thick for the pressure to help.

But I've never tried this technique with worthless wood.

then again, this pen was just made, poured, swirled all at once so you can get good definition of layers without waiting.
attachment.jpg
 
Right now the B resin is so thick it takes 20 minutes to pour a 1/2 gallon from the barrel. It does make quite a difference on the gel time, one man could mix 6 colors and pour them before they gel up too much! I've been storing the resin in the house and it hasn't been helping..I guess I keep my house too cold. The thickness has had no effect though on the final outcome.

So..store your alumilite indoors.
Mix your colors seperately then pour them into the mold individually and they will swirl around themselves.
Use oil based paints and pearl ex powders...you can combine the two.
Pearl ex only will give your a very see through effect. Paint will make the colors be solid. Add paint and pearlex and get a solid swirl which is more what you will want, but too much paint will cancel out most of the pearl.
I do not like the Alumilite liquid Dyes, but the Alumilite powders, like their gold and silver are really great.
Best place I find for Pearlex is Darhma trading co. <online>
If you have an old hardware company near by, they might have lots of reject old oil base paint out in storage that you can get real cheap. It will work, but will require a ton of mixing to get the paint back together..most of the drying agent is old paint might be gone, but you don't need those agents in the paint for this use.
If you use concentrated dyes, such as inlace dye, that will work great too, but with wood, sometimes the dye will bleed into the wood.
Right now, at 65 in the shop I am finding 60 lbs of pressure works best
In the summer, I have great luck with 40 lbs.
 
Jay warms his B in the microwave. But you have to do it very quickly because if you get it really warm it sets VERY fast.
 
mywoodshopca said:
Just started doing some tests on some worthless woods I have and not pleased with the colors.

The place I bought the alumilite at didnt have any of the alumilite dyes in stock. I tried a resin casting dye set from michaels and it just turned it one solid color and a very flat thick DULL color..

Do you mix 2 seperate batches up when doing your swirls?

What do I need to do to get the metallic looking swirls in a few colors?

Thanks Jason
Click to expand...

If you haven't found the Resin Color library check it out. Since you're using alumilite, stay away from the recipes using the Art Stuf liquid dyes.

General guidelines I've found:

Opacity and chatoyance (that's the 3-d look) are inversely proportional.

As others have said, Pearl-Ex is great, but I've found it to have low opacity.
(Not necessarily a bad thing). So you might combine it with another pigment.

Using alumilite, I would mix and then pour and put into the pressure pot. It sets up fast enough already (especially with worthless wood where you want it thin). With PR, I'd wait until it was almost gelled.
 
babyblues said:
Does this work with worthless wood casts? Do you have enough time to put it in the pressure pot?
Click to expand...
With Worthless wood you should have the resin as thin as possible so it gets into every little nook, I don't use Crystal Clear for wood. You can still get a pearl effect with the worthless wood if you use a mica, I'm not very familiar with Pearl-ex so I can't comment on that. The pigment I use comes from a company in Europe that is owned by some relatives and they give me a great price or I wouldn't use it.

A pressure pot should be mandatory for any alumilite blanks as far as I'm concerned, you will wind up with bubbles if you don't use one.
 
This was done with white alumilite and a couple drops of blue alumilite coloring. I mixed the Alumilite, added the drops, did some quick swirls with a stick, then poured.

1_pentelbbandcream02.jpg
 
DurocShark said:
This was done with white alumilite and a couple drops of blue alumilite coloring. I mixed the Alumilite, added the drops, did some quick swirls with a stick, then poured.

1_pentelbbandcream02.jpg
Click to expand...

So was that all from 1 cup or two? (pouring half out then adding the color counts as 2). i.e. did you pour a white and a blue, or a white with swirled blue?
 
Not sure about alumilite but with pr resin (silmar41) I put the worthless wood in the molds, heat them in the oven for about 20 min on warm and then pour.
 
Maybe I'm just a chicken.. but the idea of putting a bit of color in after
mixing makes me nervous. Those swirls are not catalyzed resin.. So while
it looks fantastic, those swirls could be weak points in the structure, right?
They're not bonded to anything, just suspended between layers of hardened
resin?
Don't get me wrong, it looks great. Just makes me think that they would
tend to fracture along the colored lines.
 
The Alumilite colors are Part A (I think?). They cure just fine. I can't vouch for any other brands though. And I wouldn't try it with PR using that method.
 
Oh, and this is Alumilite swirled. The color combo isn't what I was shooting for, but the color definition is nice. Mixed in two batches and poured together into the mold. No swirling with a stick or anything.

ssnav01.jpg
 
Hello everyone,

Great colors and patterns. Wanted to chime in although I understand this is pretty late for the topic but the Alumilite's dyes are actually a slow reacting polyol base which makes them reactive with the iso. Therefore they will crosslink and not bleed or leach out as long as there is not too thick of a "puddle" that the iso can not react with. This allows you to do what DurocShark has done with the blue. At trade shows I do this exact same process but use 2 or 3 colors at a time when demonstrating the dyes.

Mix the A & B completely until you know its thoroughly mixed and no swirls are seen. Then dip a thin wire, toothpick, or at the largest a popsicle stick in one of the Alumilite dyes. Then wipe off as much as you can on the side of the container. You do NOT want a drop to form and be added into the resin unless you plan on dispersing it. I prefer to simply wipe as much as possible off the stick or wire and then swirl no more than twice in the mix cup before pouring to prevent the dye from diluting into the resin and turning the entire batch a washed out color.

IF you want to do more than one color, use your stronger colors first such as black, green, and blue BEFORE using your less strong colors such as orange, red, and yellow. The stronger colors over power the lighter colors and drown them out. I'll try to post some pictures of splotches to give you some examples of multiple colors with this process tomorrow.

If you prefer big color contrasting splotches and not the tight tye dye affect, mix multiple colors with the A & B in separate cups then layer in a third cup such as white, red, blue, white, red, blue. This is trickier due to mixing and layering three different batches at once but can be done fairly easily if you have your ducks in a row before starting. Make sure to mix a lot less of the stronger colors and a lot of more of the color you want to be the base ... such as white. Its a different look that is also pretty cool.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.

Mike
Alumilite
 
Alumilite said:
Hello everyone,

Great colors and patterns. Wanted to chime in although I understand this is pretty late for the topic but the Alumilite's dyes are actually a slow reacting polyol base which makes them reactive with the iso. Therefore they will crosslink and not bleed or leach out as long as there is not too thick of a "puddle" that the iso can not react with. This allows you to do what DurocShark has done with the blue. At trade shows I do this exact same process but use 2 or 3 colors at a time when demonstrating the dyes.

Mix the A & B completely until you know its thoroughly mixed and no swirls are seen. Then dip a thin wire, toothpick, or at the largest a popsicle stick in one of the Alumilite dyes. Then wipe off as much as you can on the side of the container. You do NOT want a drop to form and be added into the resin unless you plan on dispersing it. I prefer to simply wipe as much as possible off the stick or wire and then swirl no more than twice in the mix cup before pouring to prevent the dye from diluting into the resin and turning the entire batch a washed out color.

IF you want to do more than one color, use your stronger colors first such as black, green, and blue BEFORE using your less strong colors such as orange, red, and yellow. The stronger colors over power the lighter colors and drown them out. I'll try to post some pictures of splotches to give you some examples of multiple colors with this process tomorrow.

If you prefer big color contrasting splotches and not the tight tye dye affect, mix multiple colors with the A & B in separate cups then layer in a third cup such as white, red, blue, white, red, blue. This is trickier due to mixing and layering three different batches at once but can be done fairly easily if you have your ducks in a row before starting. Make sure to mix a lot less of the stronger colors and a lot of more of the color you want to be the base ... such as white. Its a different look that is also pretty cool.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.

Mike
Alumilite
Click to expand...

Mike,
did you ever get those pictures? Thanks.
 
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