In this half of the resin pendant tutorial, we’ll look at mixing, pouring and letting the resin cure.





Mixing Your Resin:

Make sure your resin isn’t too cold or too hot before mixing. This resin label suggests mixing around a room temperature of 75F.

If you’re working in a cooler area I find that before mixing, place your resin & hardener bottles inside a bowl of warm water helps immensely. If your resin is a little ‘thick’ it won’t mix well for you- heating it up will lower the resin’s viscosity.

This may seem silly but make sure you mix your resin. Mix the bejesus out of it. I mean constant mixing for at least two minutes. If you don’t it will cure improperly and be a goopy runny cloudy mess. No Gusta.

Pouring your Resin:

With your pendants on a level surface, it is time to pour your resin. The trick to avoiding bubbles is to pour from higher up and pour slowly. Ideally you’ll have a long thin stream of resin trickling down into your pendant.



The photo above was incredibly difficult to take. Ideally the stream would be thinner and the resin would be pouring from farther away. If you notice the pendant next to it, tons of bubbles can be seen. Let’s fix that!



Use a straw to blow at the bubbles in your piece. The heat from your breath will help to draw them to the surface causing them to pop. For serious bubble damage, I’ve used a hair dryer in the past. Just make sure to have the dryer on low and hold it at a distance from the piece to prevent the resin from spilling over. If you can’t get every bubble out right away, don’t fret. Let your pieces sit for 10 minutes or so then come back to them. Sometimes bubbles will rise up on their own and you can reattempt to blow them out.

Some people will attempt to dig bubbles out with pins or toothpicks but I find that tends to add more bubbles than removes.

How to Cure:

In the ingredients list on “Resin Pendants pt 1” I advised having a safe place to cure the resin as well as having a container to place over it. The very first time I worked with resin I made several mistakes; not mixing my resin enough, it being too cold in the room I worked in, and letting it sit out unprotected. It was interesting insofar as I saw just how much dust and debris floated around in a room undetected. I had to cut out every piece and start over.

Tips:

Level surface area! The resin ‘self levels’ in the respect that it develops a nice little dome when cured. If your piece is tilted instead of having a centered dome it will pool at the lowest point of your pendant. In these photos, I pressed the pendant into a chunk of clay to keep the jump ring from tilting the piece.

Grab a plastic shoe container or tupperware and place it over your pieces while curing. This prevents motes of dust and debris from floating into your pendants.

If you have children or pets, try placing your pieces (carefully!) on a high shelf in a closet that can be closed off.

If you get any resin on your skin or nails, wash off with water and soap. Do NOT use alcohol.

Give your resin at least 24 hours to cure before touching it. I usually check on it after 24 hours to make sure the pieces are good and then let them sit another day to fully harden.

Fin.