[Katherine Swift]

This question comes from Kathy:

Hi! I would like your expert opinion before I dive into my Christmas gift projects. I would like to make trinket trays from small unfinished wooden trays and glass aquarium beads. The beads can sit on the bottom of the tray and don’t need to be “suspended” in resin. To minimize bubbles, do I need to glue each bead to the bottom of the tray, or is it sufficient to place them one by one in a thin layer of wet resin? Or neither, just start pouring? If gluing is recommended, what is the process?

[Katherine Swift]

Hi Kathy,

Since the beads can be in the bottom of the tray loose, here’s what I would do:

1. Pour a small amount of resin in the bottom of the tray. Roll it around so it covers the entire bottom.
2. Place your beads into your mixed resin cup. Thoroughly soak them in resin while rolling them around. You should see a bunch of bubbles coming to the surface of your resin.
3. Scoop the beads into the wet resin in your tray. Place them where you would like them.

At this point, to finish it, you can take one of two approaches:

A. Go over the surface of your first layer with a heat tool to pop any remaining bubbles. Let the resin and beads start to cure. Any air that is left should be sealed ‘in’ or sealed ‘out’. Pour another layer of resin to finish the tray. If you wait for the resin to be fully cured before pouring the next layer, you may see a casting line.

B. Run a heat gun over the surface of the resin and beads to pop any remaining bubbles. If you feel confident that you got out the bubbles, finish pouring your resin to the desired level. Check it again several times during the first hour or two and go over it with a heat gun as necessary to get out additional bubbles.

Good luck!

[Kathy]

Katherine,

Thank you for your quick response. Because my aquarium glass beads are fairly large at 3/4″ round each (but only 1/4″ thick or less) and are more like pebbles, do you recommend another method of placing them? A handful of large pebbles certainly won’t fit in the mixing cup. Fortunately, the pebbles I want to use have fairly flat bottoms. It may be cumbersome, but would dipping the bottoms of each pebble and then slowly placing them in a thin layer of wet resin also help to minimize the bubbles? I would then finish the piece as suggested.

Kathy

[Katherine Swift]

Hi Kathy,

You could try a larger mixing cup. Something plastic from the paint section of a home improvement store would do the trick.

Since your pebbles have a flat bottom, you could try gluing them down to your tray surface with a hot glue gun. Pour a thin layer of resin — just enough to cover the bottom of the tray — and roll it around so that it gets underneath any pebble edges that may have a space beneath it and the tray. Watch your casting like a hawk for the first hour and have your heat gun ready to zap the bubbles. Proceed as above — either pour the next layer while the first is wet or let the first layer completely cure.

Let me know how it goes!

[Author]

Posts