Casting Waterslide Decals

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woodgraver

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Federal Way, WA
I'm experiamenting with casting tubes covered with water slide decals and have had some trouble with air bubbles forming along the tube, hopefully they show up in the photo. My process is:

1) print image on white waterslide decal.
2) let dry for an hour.
3) coat with three coats of polyurethane sprayed on from the can.
4) soak the decal in water for 30 seconds.
5) wrap decal around tube and wait 24 hours.
6) place in resinsaver mould.
7) heat silmar 41 for 5 cycles, add 4 drops of MEKP per ounce of resin.
8) slowly pour resin into mold and let sit overnight.
9) Remove from mould and use a barrell trimmer to square up the ends.
10) turn between centers on the lathe.

Now, I've cast bottle stoppers before and not had any air bubbles in my pours, so I don't think the problem is there. I think the problem is that the label isn't adhering to the tube tightly enough and when there is torque applied by turning it, there is some separation happening.

Tonight I wrapped two more tubes to try this again and I used the Micro Set solution that I bought with the waterslide decals...I thought before I tried to cast this set I would ask to see if anyone had any advice that might help me be more successful this time around.

Happy casting :)

Jim
 

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I would use printed labels for wrapping tubes and leave the waterslide decals for application on the outside of your pens.

My rule is:
Wrap tubes...use labels
place on outside of finished pen...use waterslide decal

Although some may agree and some may disagree but this is what I do....I don't think the decal has enough holding power....
 
Jim,

From the picture I do not see air bubbles in the mix. What I see is a decal starting to melt from the casting heat. I tried casting decals last year and had nothing but failures. Maybe I was doing something wrong.
 
I would use the water slide decals outside of the resin, or under CA. But
probably not inside the resin. It tends to generate quite a bit of heat
 
All, thanks for the help...makes a lot of sense because the material of the water slide decal is a rubbery plastic.

Thanks for your help...I will try, try again with labels!!
 
I have been doing tons and tons of research on casting with various types of materials for an experiment I am going to be conducting once I get my casting down. The one thing that I have found - and this is from people who embed things in acrylics to preserve and make paperweights and such - not from pen makers (though it may be suggested by pen makers as well). On materials that could oxidize the resin, cause bubbles, release moister, etc - spray with an acrylic spray. That is the bottom line I am getting from these sites. I picked some up for my project and hope it works, but maybe if you want to experiment with those labels again give it a try? I know the stuff is expensive for a small can (cost $7 for me for a very small spray can). Just a thought - best of luck and happy turning
 
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RSidetrack said:
I have been doing tons and tons of research on casting with various types of materials for an experiment I am going to be conducting once I get my casting down. The one thing that I have found - and this is from people who embed things in acrylics to preserve and make paperweights and such - not from pen makers (though it may be suggested by pen makers as well). On materials that could oxidize the resin, cause bubbles, release moister, etc - spray with an acrylic spray. That is the bottom line I am getting from these sites. I picked some up for my project and hope it works, but maybe if you want to experiment with those labels again give it a try? I know the stuff is expensive for a small can (cost $7 for me for a very small spray can). Just a thought - best of luck and happy turning
Click to expand...
What is it called?
 
Michaels is where I got this same stuff for $6.99. It is used for paintings and other art items - I found it with the casting resin, Hobby Lobby has it in the acrylic paints section. This stuff is call Metal Leaf Spray Sealer, but it is an acrylic spray. It really does work well - I love the stuff. I sealed a flower pedal fresh picked and it hasn't degraded at all in two weeks.

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/store/item.aspx?ItemId=157695
 
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Have you tried applying the decal over the tube, letting it dry, then applying some CA over it to seal it, let that dry for at least a day or 2, then cast. Use 3 drops of catalyst per ounce, and only run one cycle at 480 seconds with the heat on(temp should be around 150 degrees)
 
Hello to all. I found the above conversation very interesting. I cannot remember a more frustrating project then trying to embed labels and have them come out better than a first grader. Here is where I am so far. At the present I am using Alumilite Resin for pen casting. At first I tried some labels from onlinelabels.com. I bought a thing glossy photo paper and found the resin does evil things to the photo papers. Then I tried Modpoge and this ruined the label right off. No need to wait! Now this is crazy but I bought some clear shrink tubing and that stopped any damage to the paper, except on the ends of the tube. Apparently my sealing job wasn't good enough to keep the resin from getting under the shrink tubing. Plan #54 was buying some waterproof labels that are also glossy (no shrink tubing). Now I have a different problem. I turned down one of my castings and it has little white streaks like maybe the resin is attacking these waterproof labels also. So I may not go broke trying this procedure if someone doesn't have a better method. (Please)
 
Instead of casting over a waterslide decal try putting the decal on a finished pen blank - light colored wood works best. Then put a CA finish over the decal. I have made hundreds of pens using this method,
 
One of my other hobbies is Scale Models, and I use 2 products called Micro Set and Micro Sol, for my waterslide decals. It basically "shrinks" the decal, and provides a coating that protects it from the top coat. It's made by Microscale Industries.
 
When you guys are talking about heat cycles for the resin what are you using for the heat source. Seamus said one heat cycle for 480 sec.
Lin
 
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