I finished my resin filled pins! They turned out the way I planned (thanks to my able-bodied advisory team) with only a few delays and one large detour.
The delays were summer, many other projects, cloudy resin and other projects.
here are all 3 together
I dropped little silver balls into the resin when it had started thickening up (about 4 hours). Click on each for a close-up.
The heart and the smaller oval shape have a pin catch and a loop on the back so they can be worn as a pendant too. The larger round one is just a pin.
The large detour was waiting for the solvent to get here, and removing the #$%*+*! cloudy resin.
NOTE: If you use this solvent, "Attack" from "Rio Grande" you need to use a real respirator for gasses and not inhale the fumes. The fumes can burn your lungs! Be very careful to work in a ventilated area, better yet, outside. That's what I did. I put about 1/3 inch of the liquid into a glass jar with my pins in it and a lid on top. It should be tightly closed so the liquid won't evaporate. Wait overnight and the resin is out in flakey chunks. I used latex gloves and toothpicks to get all of it out and then soaked the pieces in acetone. Then I washed them in soapy water and rubbed them off again with a paper towel soaked in acetone. You will still need lots of air. That acetone can give you a stomach ache.
Then I got my second chance to make the pins over again!
I ended up using 'Colores' resin with the thin hardener. After mixing the resin with the thick hardener and mixing and mixing for about 10 minutes, following ALL the directions and still getting cloudy resin I bailed on the domed top idea and decided these pins would have a flat surface.
After the resin had been setting for about 8 hours and was almost hard, I put little 22 kt gold balls on top and pressed them gently down into the resin and let it set overnight.
and a detail of the side, pattern on the bezel edge
If you look closely you can see the gold balls sitting at the top of the resin. I did that so they would reflect their yellow gold color. If the gold is completely covered by the resin, it just looks brown.
The designs are from rubber stamps by Invoke Arts, one of my favorite stamp companies.
I can move on with my life now...
