Absolute Beginner Guide to Let's Resin Alcohol Ink

Hey everyone welcome back to Pawpaw's Workshop. Well in the shop today I'm working on an epoxy resin project. I'm using the Let's Resin epoxy resin and I'm using the Let's Resin alcohol inks. Now this is going to be a step-by-step beginner guide on what to do and what not to do with these alcohol inks and the epoxy resins. So if you're brand new to being able to do the epoxy resins and you want to be able to have results like this, this is the video for you. I'm going to show you step-by-step on what to do and in some cases what not to do to be able to have a beautiful project. Now these are the silicone molds that we're going to be using. One of the big questions that people have is how much resin do you need to fill this up? Now one of the easiest ways to do this is to actually pour water in it, fill it up, and then pour the water into a container that you can measure. Now this takes about one and a half ounces to be able to fill this up to the surface. You can do the same thing. I took this mold which is the coaster holder and I filled this up with water and it takes about three ounces of water to be able to fill this mold. This is really the easiest way to be able to determine how much resin that you actually need and you can do the same thing with these types of molds as well and that's a lot easier than trying to do the math and figure out the number of square inches and the number of ounces and so on to be able to figure the actual calculation out. I'm going to mix up about five ounces of the Let's Resin and this is the cast in resin and this is a one-to-one ratio and we're going to mix up about five six ounces to be able to do this project and we're going to be using the alcohol inks. We're going to be using the alcohol inks by Let's Resin and this is a 48 piece in here and this is the bottles that we have for the Let's Resin and there's a wide variety of different colors to be able to choose from. Before pouring the resin you want to make sure that your work area is completely organized and you have all the materials that you need to do the project. Now I'm using a trash bag taped down to the workbench to protect the workbench itself. I can pretty much guarantee you're going to have some little spills. Now since this is a one-to-one ratio I poured equal parts of part A and part B into this container. Then from there I'll just simply combine this into the other container and I want to scrape the sides really well and get all of this epoxy out. Now this particular cup has a rounded bottom on it right here on this edge and that fits actually perfect with this wood stick that I have and allows me to get down to the very bottom and get all of that epoxy out. And now I'm going to stir and mix this real well for about three minutes. At this stage you will notice a few bubbles but Let's Resin is noted for a bubble free resin and truly it is. I want to mix this for at least three minutes and I want to make sure that I scrape the sides real good to be able to make sure that all of this epoxy both part A and B are thoroughly mixed together and that also means scraping the bottom as well. Now it's been about three three and a half minutes that I've been mixing this and you will notice there's some small bubbles in this resin. That's okay Let's Resin is known for a bubble free application and quite frankly the first time I used this resin I didn't believe it. But after using this for a number of different projects it truly is bubble free. The next step after mixing is I'm going to let it sit for about 15 minutes before taking the next step. Most of the bubbles will disappear by then. In this project I will not use a heat gun and I will not use a torch to be able to remove bubbles. One of the suggestions that I want to give you is when you open up these inks for the first time these are actually sealed. Rather than like the instruction shows where you just cut it off with the scissors I would suggest that you would use a needle. If you have a fairly large needle you can stick that in there it will create a much smaller hole and give you a small drop which will give you more control over the ink that you put into your resin. It's been about 15 minutes since we mixed the A and B parts to this and there's virtually no bubbles at all. Now this epoxy is still rather thin at this point. I'm going to go ahead and pour it into the different cups and by pouring it real slow with a long stream that helps to reduce the bubbles still more. So as I pour it into this coaster mold there's virtually no bubbles whatsoever. One of the things I want to emphasize is that you have plenty of time you there's no need to rush. You have about a 40-45 minute working time with this resin. I'm also going to put a little bit of resin in these small cups. I took a small cup and mixed just a tiny bit of the Aztec gold micro powder into this epoxy. I also added some gold flakes. Now that's not the best material to be using for this but it's going to show you exactly what not to do. Now as far as the technique where I take the epoxy that is mixed with this micro powder this is actually okay. The problem that you have is when you mix in the gold flakes one there's just not enough of them and two it's hard to be able to break it up. So this is not the best product to use on this type of a project. You're much better off being able to find a small stone gem or other more dense material that you could actually mix with this epoxy and put into the center of this flower. So that's going to be the first mistake that we use in this particular coaster to be able to demonstrate. The next step is I take a little toothpick and be able to try to maneuver the epoxy to be able to keep it in the center and to be able to move those little flakes around. Keep this in mind that gold hopefully would sink more to the middle of this project and because the gold flakes are so lightweight it's just not dense enough to be able to have that effect. So next it's time to start adding some color. The first color that I'm using is the rose color and I'm gonna put one drop right in the center. Now this basically is going to be on top of the gold and when you put that drop in you see the alcohol ink immediately starting to spread out. Now the gold is slightly below the surface and that's what I was hoping for but the actual gold flakes are not dense enough of material to help pull that gold down more to the center of the coaster itself. The next color that I'm going to add is the magenta and I'll put this with several drops all the way around this first color that we have which was the Aztec gold. Now remember the Aztec gold was actually a micro powder not part of the Let's Resin lineup of alcohol inks. Now if you notice the alcohol ink is staying pretty much on the surface. That gold mica powder and those gold flakes have sunk down closer to the middle of this resin. The colors of this is absolutely gorgeous. I love the alcohol inks by Let's Resin. They're just so bright colorful they're vibrant and they're just something that just is beautiful compared to other inks that I've used in the past. The next color I'm going to add to this is the peach red. Now this actually comes out a little bit more like a pink color. So as I drop this ink into the resin you can see how the color looks and it does give more of a pink color as compared to the peach red that is indicated on the bottle. But it is a gorgeous color. Just as a reminder remember I used a needle to put the hole into this container of the ink and you can see how I had good control to drop each individual drop into this resin. Next color I want to add is a purple and we're going to do it a little bit different and probably not the best way. I took the alcohol ink the purple color and added it just to a small amount of the epoxy resin. Now this makes a very translucent color and it's probably not the best way but I want to show you what happens to this as we move along. And the first thing you're going to notice is this ink is not spreading out. It's really staying right in the center and not moving anywhere. So why does that happen? Well if you think about it the epoxy that we mixed the purple with is the same density as the epoxy that's already in the coaster. So it's not going to move around. The only thing you could do is use a toothpick and move it manually but it's going to create a different type of effect. Throughout this video so far I've talked about the density of the materials and here's one I want you to look particularly close to. This is a white pigment. Now this is a very thick material and it is very dense and I want you to look at this. You see how this is not spreading at all and it's sinking directly into the resin. Because of the density of this white pigment you can see even though these little daisy flowers that we're creating are real pretty. The problem that you have is that this pigment is sinking directly to the bottom and where is it going to land? Because this material is so dense it is going to land directly onto the bottom of this coaster mold itself and that quite frankly is not what you want to do. If you want to use this technique you need to be able to take and add the epoxy to it and be able to distribute it in very very small quantities to be able to create this same effect. This is full strength pigment and it's extremely dense and you can see how it's gone straight to the bottom. This quite frankly destroys the whole project at this point because of the density of this material. Even though I'm going to use the toothpick to be able to move this around and create some nice effects on the surface because this pigment went straight to the bottom it's not being moved around and it's just literally creating a mess. So at this point no matter what we do on the surface to try to move this alcohol ink around the fact that this pigment has gone straight to the bottom it is going to be a ruined coaster. It's not going to help anything at all. Even trying to swirl this in the direction to be able to pick up that white pigment off the bottom of the coaster it's not going to help. So this is a disaster and these are some of the things that you should not and cannot do with the epoxy resin with the alcohol ink and more importantly that heavy white pigment. So even though these colors actually blend really nice together and it looks great on this side it is going to be a disaster when we try to demold this. This is a great product but you have to take this product and mix a tiny drop in with the resin to use it. So let's move on to the next coaster and be able to use the correct techniques. On this next coaster I'm going to start out with a dark purple and I'm going to put just a couple drops right there in the center and we're going to let that spread out for just a moment and we're going to grab a second color. I'm going to use the peach red that we used before because that is going to give a great contrast between the purple and the peach red. Now remember this comes out more like a pink color. I want to give this ink just a few moments to be able to spread out and work its magic. While that's taking place I'm going to go down to the third coaster and start that one. I'm going to grab the rose color ink to be able to start this third coaster. I love to watch how this ink just spreads out as soon as you put the drop on to the surface of the epoxy. I'm going to add some magenta as my second color on this particular coaster and I think that will be a nice complement. It's not a big contrast but I think it'll be a good complementary color. I'm also going to use the magenta color to go in between this color and I think that's going to give a very nice complementary color to this particular coaster. Now that all the colors are added I'm going to take the sinker white which is an alcohol ink that's part of this kit and I'm going to put a drop of this ink directly on top of this other color. Now I don't need a lot of this it's going to be spaced out but this is going to add a lot of contrast and be able to help blend these different colors. The next thing I want to do is add one more color to this coaster down here and this is apricot and this will be the final color for this particular coaster. Now you'll notice this ink is not spreading out as fast and as large as it did in the beginning. That's because the epoxy is slowly beginning to cure so time is beginning to run out. It's time to start moving this around and creating the flower effect. My wife wants to get involved and help create this swirl effect. She's taking the silicone stylus and starting in the center and pulling this dark purple ink out through each of the different petals. To create the sticker part of the flower you need to do this little swirl effect. Now let's move down to the next coaster and add the sinker white. Remember this is the alcohol ink that's part of this kit and I'll put the little drops around. Again I'm putting these drops on top of the other color. Now for this particular coaster we're doing just the opposite. Instead of going from the center out we're going from the outer edge and pulling the color into the center. It gives a completely different effect but I think it's just equally as beautiful. The last step I'm taking a little toothpick and creating that little swirl right in the center and that helps to create the center of that flower. Well it's the next morning and it's time to demold these coasters and let's take a at them. I'm going to start with this one. This is the one that is a complete failure and I want to show you what happened. Now this surface actually looks like a very soft flower but when you flip it over you see that pigment went straight to the bottom. It was too heavy. This white ocean pigment should not be used as a standalone product. It should have been just a tip of the material mixed in with the epoxy and it would have worked fine. Now this one turned out absolutely beautiful. Look at the colors. Look at how the colors blended and this one turned out absolutely gorgeous. I like the contrast with the different colors and that's very important to do. Now this one I think also turned out gorgeous. Completely different palette of different colors. They were a little bit closer in the hue but it still turned out to be beautiful. So these are some of the do's and don'ts that you need to be able to take in consideration with the resin. When using the pigment to be able to add the white, mix it with the clear epoxy in a cup first and then put it into the flower. Now this one turned out absolutely beautiful using the alcohol ink, the sinker white. I'm going to put this glove behind it to give a little bit more of a contrast but you can see how the purple, the pink and the magenta colors all blended with that white to be able to have stunning results. I love how this one turned out. This one as well turned out absolutely gorgeous and these colors were just a little bit closer as far as the hue with the peach and the magenta colors. But again you can mix different colors to be able to get a contrast. I hope you enjoyed this beginner's guide to using the alcohol ink with the resin. You saw some definite don't do this no matter what in this video and you also saw quite a few things to do right to be able to make your project successful. The whole goal behind this video is to be able to have it where you're going to be successful on your first attempt doing the resin pours with the alcohol inks. And if you like this kind of a video please give me a thumbs up and please subscribe to the channel. I would like to do some more of these videos if you guys are interested in learning more about the resin and the different techniques. So for now everyone, I look forward to seeing each and every one of you in the next video. So for now bye-bye everyone. Can't wait to see you in the next video.