Giving epoxy another try

If you know me, or have been following this blog for a while, you know that I have a tendency to hoard vanities. I love antique furniture, and despite most vanities being totally useless I find them to be so charming I have trouble passing one up. I had finally gotten rid of all of the vanities I had hoarded while living in Wisconsin when my father in law offered us an old family vanity that he'd been storing for years. While my husband knew we had no need for it, I couldn't help myself. We dissembled it, crammed it in the Honda Fit and home it came.

While it's in generally very good shape, years of storage and temperature changes had really done a number on the old fashioned bakelite clips holding the mirror in place, and by the time we got it set up in our guest room, more than half of them had broken. 

I was prepared to just replace them with whatever I could buy at the hardware store that would be close enough, after about 10 hours online of scouring for the right thing, it became apparent that nothing even close enough to customize was available on the market. Even the antique furniture restoration companies couldn't sell me something that would work. My husband offered to try to make me something out of metal, but I worried it would scratch up the antique mirror and also, would never look quite right. I contacted a couple of 3D printers about making replacements, but no one felt that they could make something strong enough to support a mirror or that would look very nice, so I gave up on that path. After more hours on this project than I would care to admit (hey, it was summer) I realized that I had to do. It was time to learn resin. 

I have never played around resin and have always found it to be terribly threatening after the resin epoxy mosaic table incident of 2009. But, as my dad used to say, you can't learn any younger. Also, I'm a much better crafter than I was in 2009.  

So, off I went to JoAnn to buy a box of 2 part resin and a box of 2 part molding compound. I stopped at the dollar store for plastic cups and some brown eye shadow, which the internet insisted I could use in place of alcohol based ink to dye my epoxy, and the adventure began.

First, I created the outer shape for my mold by hot gluing a disposable plastic cup I'd cut the bottom out of onto a plastic take out container. I put a little tape over the screw hold in one of the original intact clips and hot glued it down onto the take out container inside the cup. Then, I mixed up my molding compound and covered it all the way over the clip with about 1/2" to 3/4" of coverage above the clip.

Almost immediately the molding compound started to leak out the edges. I came in with an emergency hot glue job to try to dam up the leaks, but the result was pretty messy. Since the was nothing else to be done, I just decided to wait. 

As a result of the silicon mold mess, I ended up having to totally disassemble my mold form with scissors to get it out, and I did some clean up on the edges of the mold, but it seemed like a place to start. 

The next day, once the mold was ready to use, it was time to test the epoxy. Following the instructions carefully and measuring down the to gram on a scale, I mixed the epoxy (perhaps too vigorously) and colored it with cheap brown eyeshadow. I poured it (again probably too vigorously) into the mold and ended up with a first clip that was probably not as good as what the 3D printer could have made me, complete with a million tiny air bubbles and an oddly sparkly finish. I made a couple more using this technique, trying to stir more slowly and carefully to reduce air bubbles and giving it a little time to off gas before pouring. The result was better, but still very much the wrong color. 

While I was ready to make a whole set and call it good enough, my perfectionist husband gently pointed out that I could probably do better and encouraged me to just go buy the alcohol inks if they would give me a better result. I also decided to re-cast a mold with three clips rather than just one so that I could make batches of clips, rather than one at a time. 

My first batch with the alcohol ink was immediately so much better. The color wasn't quite rich enough and the ink wasn't marbled like it was supposed to be, but from a distance, they were convincing. I made a couple more batches improving each time, until I eventually ended up with something that (if you can overlook a little speckling from air bubbles) was a very convincing dupe for the original. The marbling and color were spot on. 

To show my progress, this photo has the original on top, and each of my 4 batches leading up the final product. I did a little clean up on the edge that was shaped like a hot glue line and drilled out the holes, which unfortunately made white dust that got in the air bubbles and made the more pronounced. 

Then, I gave them a week to cure before putting them to work holding up the mirror. Six months later as I try to photograph the clips in place, I'm pretty sure I know which ones are the originals, but I wouldn't bet any money on it.