Multi-Stage Resin and Plastic Pours

Lesson 4: Multi-Stage Resin and Plastic Casting

With both resins and plastics, it is possible to do more complicated pours that can give beautiful and complicated results. With multi-stage pours you can pour areas or layers of color, create patterning in the colors, and embed objects.

• To pour into your 2-part molds, place the mold between the glass or plexi plates and secure with clamps or rubber bands
• Only mix the amount of material that you need for that stage of the pour. If you are uncertain how much that is, you can pour water into your mold and measure the volume of the water.
• Pay attention to the cure times for your material. You want to pour additional stages when the material has partially set- enough that the surface will keep the new layer separate, but not fully cured.
• If you are embedding objects, make sure they are fully encased or will not decay.
• If you want to create patterns in the color other than layers:

o   Let your material begin to cure so that it is thicker and will hold in the areas you place it without sliding. You can orient your molds in different directions to assist this.

o   Alternatively, you can let your pieces cure completely, then use the flexshaft to hollow out areas and then pour into those areas for a more geometric look.

With the quick curing plastics, you can also do a low-tech rotational casting to create hollow pieces. This only works with 2 part molds. The epoxy resin takes too long to set, so it will not work.

To do this:

• Prep your mold for casting.
• Take a rubber band and loop around an anchor point.
• Place mold inside rubber band and wind band up.
• Hold onto mold.
• Mix and pour material into mold.
• Let go of mold and it will spin around!
• (For even lower tech, spin mold in your hands)

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