Layered epoxy inlay #11: Calling it done................for now

That “thing” turned out great. You did a good job on the blog of it too. Thanks

-- Use it up, Wear it out --------------- Make it do, Or do without!

Nice job. And thanks for the blog, too.

-- Gene 'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' G. K. Chesterton

That one tooth that chipped out really bothers me. I may have to make an extra hour today to fix that. besides that I am very happy with it. Next time I will be more careful of carving to my lines. I didn’t have the carbon paper when I started and got a little sloppy and had to adjust the rest of the project. Lesson learned. Now I can’t wait to see what I turn this into. If the days only had more hours.

-- JoeyG ~~~ http://www.facebook.com/JHGWoodWorks

Joey A nice tour through you mind. Looks like a lot of LJ’ers may use some of these ideas.

-- I've been blessed with a father who liked to tinker in wood, and a wife who lets me tinker in wood. Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

It turned out real nice Joey. Really enjoyed your blog, I think a lot of points were covered here & we learned a lot in the process. Thank you.

-- Don't waste today, it is yesterdays tomorrow!~SisQMark

Thanks everyone. I left my promise to finish this project into a dremel box on the project listing. I thought I was here on the blog. Oops, anyway, thanks for joining me on this journey. It was a real learning experience for me and a lot of fun to share.

See ya on the next one.

-- JoeyG ~~~ http://www.facebook.com/JHGWoodWorks

I just started a project like this for a kinda sorta late Christmas present. I used the Envirotex Lite epoxy because it is clear and available at Michaels ( http://www.michaels.com/EnviroTex-Lite%C2%AE/gc0511,default,pd.html ). I think the smallest volume package ran about $22 Canadian.

I am still figuring out how to mix colors. I cut apart a wooden colored pencil and ground its pigment tube (lead?) in a mortar and pestle and then decided that it was a terrible idea. I needed a creamy yellow color, so I took what fine powder I created from the colored pencil and mixed it with mustard powder to bulk it out. this seems to have worked, but the epoxy is ever so slightly softer than I would like.. I suspect there is some wax in the colored pencil which might be to blame

It strikes me that powdered pigment would be a major step in the right direction when compared to using acrylic paints or dyes. However at least in the first attempt I’ve made, the pigment seems to have fallen to the deep recesses of the carved area, whereas the overflow which I will scrape off later is almost clear now. This actually worked out ok this time around, but I suspect that a commercial powdered pigment would be ground much finer and might have some additives that would keep it suspended in the epoxy better.

I’m going to put in my second color tomorrow. I’m going to try filling the kerfs from my scroll saw with black epoxy to delineate the design with as fine a line as possible… hopefully the epoxy is fluid enough to fill such a gap, if not, ill liberally apply the use of tooth picks

Anyways, sorry for the giant post. Once I figured I would comment, apparently I found I had a lot to say.
I’d like to hear on how you plan to get sharper corners in the teeth though, as the cured epoxy seems to not take that well to a chisel.

Hi Patrick. Thanks for letting me know how the colored pencils worked out. I had thought about using them but didn’t. I had wondered how they would break down into a powder. I have heard of people using colored chalk. I think the next one I do like this I will be trying dried water color paints. So far I like the acrylic paint the best for several reason. One answers the last question you had. The acrylic paint causes the epoxy to stay just a bit softer than it cures naturally. (If you don’t use to much paint). When I used dry coloring the epoxy got so hard it was brittle and chipped when I tried to carve it. I use a chip carving knife to go in a clean up the corners and sharp points. With the epoxy that I used the acrylic paint, I get a nice smooth slice, but where I used dry color it chips out like concrete.

There are a couple of teeth in the left side of the mouth that I will have to go back and fix because they chipped out. I’ll get to it at some point.

Thanks for checking out my blog. I have several others you should check out if you get a chance. And stay tuned to this one, This little guy has another journey to go on sometime in the future.
Joey

-- JoeyG ~~~ http://www.facebook.com/JHGWoodWorks

Joey – I know this is a long time after the fact, but I was wondering if you could share a couple words on glitter. I’m doing a project involving epoxy inlay (Dodgers logo in blue). Your tutorial was very helpful, BTW. But I found that after sanding my test inlays flush with the wood, I don’t get hardly any sparkle from the glitter added to the mix. Only got sparkle from the very few individual glitter bits that ended up laying flush with the sanded surface. Other than that I get some whitish specks from where the individual glitter pieces ended up suspended at an angle to the surface and sanded down. Any tips on how to get the glitter to sparkle in an epoxy inlay?
Thanks,
Rick

Hi Rick. I have found that acrylic metallic paint works a little better than glitter. When I do use glitter I use glitter the same color I am trying to achieve and just add a bunch of it. Painting the bottom of the inlay before the epoxy goes in also helps. I am looking forward to seeing your projects.

-- JoeyG ~~~ http://www.facebook.com/JHGWoodWorks