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Hello and good morning all!
First off I’d like to thank you all for creating such a welcoming website with TONS of information for beginners. I’m sure I speak for a lot of people when I say it is GREATLY appreciated! So far I’ve purchased all of my resin goods from you, with the exception of a few specific silicon molds. So thank you!
I’m casting keychain jewelry, my first casting came out extra bendy and dented very easy, which I discovered was from a bad mix and a bad cure.
Second casting came out perfect, cured at necessary temps and for 32 hours. Although the cure came out hard as a rock, the pieces were all so brittle that they snapped upon trying to get a keyring through the hole provided. After realizing this, I was able to drop from no more than 1′ to 2′ off the floor and they shattered into a bunch of tiny pieces. Is this normal for the type of resin I purchased? (Jewelry resin for molds). I was under the assumption that jewelry is supposed to be able to take somewhat of a beating, considering they’re used every day and come into contact with lots of different surfaces from time to time, ie rings, earrings, keychains, etc. Is this not the type of resin I should be using for this project?
If anyone has any info, it would be greatly appreciated.
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Hi Axel,
Welcome to the world of resin! I’m glad to hear you are doing some QC testing of your keychains before letting customers use them. Smart!
Unfortunately, it has been my experience as well that any hard-curing resin can shatter when it hits a hard surface. You can use a softer-curing resin for your keychains, but they will dent when they hit the floor. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a good ‘best of both worlds’ resin for a project like this. Softer curing resins are also going to show more scratches and wear than the harder curing resins.
I wish I had a good answer for you.
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Hello and good evening all,
Just an update for anyone who might benefit from this info…
It turns out that the liquid pigment I was using is water-based. This threw off the curing process enough to cause bendy, yet brittle, castings that shattered with the slightest of ease.
I cast my next batch in the same mold, with the same ratio with NO pigment. This resulted in EXTRA hard, sturdy castings that can actually be dropped from much higher without a SCRATCH, not to mentioned chucked at the wall fairly hard with NO damage.
Hope it might help someone, and have a good night all!
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