Fuck Up
What you need
epoxy resin
curved plastic bowl
kitchen scale
plastic or metal stirring device
heavy duty rubber gloves
respiratory protection
blow torch
prepare to get something wrong on your first attempt - or don’t
With my mosaic all figured out, I was ready to start mixing. The ratio of resin versus hardener will vary depending on the product you are using. Thus, I won’t bother detailing any of my numbers here. You can find the product I bought here. But I would advise you to keep as close as possible to the respective ratio. Meeting this requirement will directly impact your result. It may even mess up your entire piece if you get it wrong. Too much resin may prevent the epoxy from ever hardening out completely. If you put in too much hardener, you may not even get the time to pour it properly.
Figuring Out
Additionally, you should put very good care towards the amount of epoxy you pour at once. As mentioned before, the chemical reaction generates heat (it is exothermic), quite a lot actually. You’ll feel it on the container you use once it is mixed. If you pour too deep, the mixture might start boiling uncontrollably, rendering your project useless, while releasing a bunch of toxic fumes. Sounds horrible, right? Well, fucking around with chemicals just is. Again, the maximum depth should also be detailed in your product description. In case it is not, you can always contact the seller or factory that made it. As a rule of thumb, try not to be greedy and when in doubt pour multiple shallow layers.
Most importantly, wear heavy duty gloves that protect you from this stuff while it is liquid and put on respiratory protection. The fumes released from a cooking epoxy mixture can absolutely cause permanent damage on your lungs. Best, put on all your protective gear right before opening any epoxy container.
Regardless of how deep you plan to pour, you should set a number for this. With that figured out, hit up your favorite search engine and type “epoxy resin calculator”. After all, you may want to be economical with epoxy, because the stuff comes in at a pretty high price. At least it does when you compare it to the other “raw” materials used in this project. So pick one of many online calculators and punch in the measures of your mold, mixing ratio and the desired depth of pour. A tool will tell you how much of each component you will need, before you can even fail at crunching the numbers yourself. Of course, if you have a lot of other content sitting inside the mold (like a skate wood mosaic), you should roughly factor that in, too. Overall, there are a lot of resources online that will explain how to properly use epoxy resin and I should definitely not be the only person to educate you on this.
Mixing
When mixing the components, I used a large, round plastic bowl, which I sat on my kitchen scale to weigh in the portions. Using a metal whisk, I stirred it all around at casual velocity and in different directions for several minutes. I found that most resources on this were very much focussed around properly mixing the components. Foremost, using a bowl with round surface bounds would be helpful, as it prevents any parts of either component from keeping stuck in the corners of the mixing container. Sounds reasonable, especially because it’s kind of tough to tell the resin and hardener apart after some stirring. But you really should not see any swirls whatsoever after proper mixing. Bubbles are fine, for now...
After I carefully cooked up a nice plastic pot of resin and hardener, I walked down into my basement. Here, I had meticulously leveled the floor, such that my project would cure with the same amount of epoxy above all mosaic pieces. Again, this stuff is like water at first, so it will succumb to even the slightest pull of gravity. Additionally, I formed a crater covered in plastic foil around my project. This would prevent any potential leakage or spilling to cause damage on my basement interior.
Yes, I was pretty well prepped. And yes, when I started my pour, I felt pretty confident about the whole thing. But as the title of this post hints at, I fucked up nonetheless. Let’s talk about that.
Before I do, let’s get in the mood. Fucking Up is part of any process, especially in skating. So here is Aaron ‘Jaws’ Homoki, the king of getting wasted and conquering the process in the end.
Fucking Up
Here I was, sitting in my basement, carefully pouring epoxy onto my mosaic. Initially, all went well. Then some bubbles appeared on the surface. “No big deal”, I thought. All tutorials will tell you to have a blowtorch or heat gun ready to burst them. Being the wannabe MacGyver I am, I took out my handy propane camping cooker and let it spit some fire. Actually, it quite literally did. Don’t do that! Turns out flipping a propane cooker upside down while it’s lit isn’t the best idea. Who’d have thought, duh!?
In any case, I tamed the beast and got rid of the bubbles - initially. It didn’t take long until the next patch of bubbles started popping up again. I unleashed the pocket dragon once more and sadly to the same end. My mixture did not boil, it just constantly created bubbles. I was unsure why this was happening. Not knowing what else to do, I just kept fighting bubbles with fire. Then my camping torch gave up.
I shook the can and it still seemed to be decently filled. It lit for a moment and then turned off again. Suddenly, I realized that the upward streaming flames had started to melt the plastic mounts of the gas release nozzle. At that time, I was kind of confused as to what was more troublesome - a half full and potentially damaged propane gas cartridge, or my epoxy project slowly ruining itself.
Another great decision followed. I pulled out my phone and made a couple of panicking calls, asking friends for additional torches. Yes, this was not a typo. Instead of calling it a failure, I got my friend Freddy to come over within minutes. He borrow me his camping cooker, plus an additional cartridge. Freddy surely noticed, too, that I was hellbent on saving this pour. Thanks for your support! Wouldn’t be the last time I called him over…
Anyway, my theory was that I would have to burst bubbles long enough for the mixture to cure into a more viscous state. Once that would happen, the bubbles would surely not be able to rise up to the surface anymore. Sadly, I was wrong. More bubbles came. At some point the shortened intervals of my heat application actually created more bubbles. My desperate actions seemed to slightly make the project boil. That was it. After about forty minutes, I accepted my defeat and retreated back upstairs.
A day later, I removed the result from the mold. It didn’t look too bad. At least some parts were almost bubble-free. Still, I couldn't accept this as a basis for my guitar body blank. I started sanding down the bubbles. It did not take long to realize that this treatment would transform sealed bubbles into craters, the largest of which were easily half a centimeter deep.
Now, I was certain that the war on bubbles was lost.
Or was it not?
