I'm going to recast my wheel and knobs, and want to use a clear resin Is Clear polyester casting resin the stuff to use or do you have to use some other type of plastic? The old clear wheels seemed to crack fast. I'm just working on making molds and been testing them with the polyester. So far so good. I will need something that will set fast for the mother of pearl look I'm after. Jdee
The polyester stuff is sensitive to how much hardener you put in it. Too much hardener and it cracks easily. It'll be a little less brittle if you can slow down the cure. I would think a steering wheel would need to flex a little bit, if for no other reason than you sometimes push and pull on it getting in the car, and of course, the stoplight drum solo. Is part of the project we were talking about in Z-hills last year? This stuff is thermoformable, but they only sell it in quan***y. MOP
Straight polyester resin will be brittle and prone to cracking. Perhaps a vinylester or epoxy might be strong enough but clarity will be compramised. I suspect though, that those would also crack at some point. I don't have any other suggestions for a stronger clear material without using some sort of filler or reinforcement in high stress areas.
Just found this site looks like what I might need. http://industrialpolymers.com/trans_casting_compounds.html 4t64rd I was trying to make a coating, The Print stuff we were talking about just did not work at all. After I got back to the shop and looked at my stuff I gave up on that deep pearl look with the printing process. I tried to make a "pearl Gel" I did pour some polyester resin with pearl in it with a GEL PROMOTER While it was still like jello I could pick it up and wrap it around a contour. But what a mess ! I said heck with it and am trying to learn to make molds from my parts and just pour some new stuff.
http://www.smooth-on.com/ http://www.reynoldsam.com/index.htm These guys have a DVD they sell on Ebay:http://www.freemansupply.com/ Some of the modern Urethanes should be better than the old ployesters. I did do an experiment with pearl power and Envirotex polymer: http://www.eti-usa.com/consum/envtex/envlite.htm The results looks decent,but I think you want something that sets up quicker to give more spectacular results.
Did you try white ink over a pearl background? I tried using the plastic bag technique painting the back of some acetate white and then the pearl with the brush marks and it worked pretty good, so if you reversed it and printed white crackle on top or the brushmark pearl...
I tried over a few colors/pearls , just lack the depth for the light to bounce around in I think. This pic shows it just looks bad. Does weird stuff in the sun though ... Jdee
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