Working with resin can be exciting, but beginners often face common pitfalls like sticky surfaces, bubbles, or poor curing. Don’t worry—most mistakes are easily avoidable! In this guide, we’ll cover the top resin crafting mistakes and share simple tips to ensure your projects succeed.
Get the Right Resin for Your Project
The most important tip I can give you when working with resin is to use the right resin for your project.
Most people don´t realize that there are several types of resin that all have different properties. Here are the things to look out for when buying resin:
- Pouring depth. Resins all have recommended pouring depths that you need to follow to ensure that your resin project doesn´t crack during the curing process. Most art resins only allow a pouring depth of 2 – 3 cm or 1 inch. If you want to make deeper pours then deep-pour resin is needed. Deep-pour resin cures much slower but can be poured deeper and art resin cures faster but can only be poured shallow.
- Viscosity. Resins have different viscosity. Depending on your project, you might need a thicker or thinner consistency. Deep-pour resins often have a thinner viscosity while art resins are often a little thicker in consistency. There are, however, also art resins that cure slower and have a thin viscosity.
- Two-part or UV-resin. You will mostly work with two-part epoxy resins that come with two parts that need to be mixed in a certain ratio. But there are also UV-resins that cure under UV light. These can be useful if you want to make very small resin pieces or if you want to coat small items in resin. UV-resins cure in only a couple of minutes but should only be used in thin layers.
- Work time. This isn´t as important as other things on this list but can still be a factor to consider for your project. The work time is the amount of time where the resin can still be worked with or poured. Trying to work with the resin after this time has elapsed can cause an uneven surface finish or similar issues.
Art Resins can be used for small to medium jewelry, bookmarks, small paperweights, miniature dioramas, and similar.
Here is some art resin on Amazon.
Deep-Pour-Resins can be used for fake water, dioramas, big paperweights, and similar.
Here is some deep-pour resin on Amazon.
UV-Resin can be used to add effects to miniatures, coat an item in resin, make very small resin pours, and similar.
Here is some UV resin on Amazon.
Use Silicone Mats to Protect from Spillage
Resin can be very messy to work with so make sure to work on a surface that can take a spillage. Resin isn´t easy to clean up and it bonds to a lot of different surfaces once it has cured. Uncured resin is best cleaned up with some isopropyl alcohol.
That´s where silicone comes in! Because silicone has one very useful characteristic: Nothing sticks to silicone but silicone. Not even cured resin.
I always put a silicone mat under my resin pours while they cure. This way, if there is a spillage I can simply let it cure and then peel the cured resin off of the silicone mat.
You can get silicone mats right here on Amazon.
Use the Right Colorant for the Job
There are many ways to color resin. I have a complete article where I tested different colorants for resin, you can read more on that topic.
Here is a short summary of different colorants and how they affect the color and opacity of resin.
- Alcohol ink. Alcohol ink is my preferred way of coloring resin. Alcohol inks are quite cheap, can be mixed to get more color variations, and mix well with resin. The result will be transparent.
- Acrylic paint. Acrylic paints are also cheap and can also be mixed to get a greater color variety but when you mix them with resin the resin will turn opaque and lose its transparency completely.
- Mica Powder. I only use Mica powder for adding a special effect to resin like glitter or glow in the dark. Mica powder will make resin opaque just like when coloring resin with acrylic paint.
Mix the Resin Correctly
Most resins are mixed in a 1 to 1 ratio, meaning one part resin and one part hardener. But some resins, like deep-pour resins, can have a different mixing ratio.
So make sure to check the mixing ratio before you use the resin to ensure that the resin cures correctly.
It is very important to mix the resin as well as possible and to measure the ratio as accurately as possible.
If the resin has a tacky surface after the curing process or if the resin only cured partially then you either mixed the resin not thoroughly enough or your measurements were off.
Remove Bubbles from the Resin
During the mixing process, air is introduced into the resin. This is unavoidable and can lead to issues later on.
There are resins that are advertised as “degassing” or “bubble-free” and that is true to a certain extent but there can still be bubbles that form inside the resin that can´t escape.
The best way to solve this issue is by using a vacuum chamber. You can simply place the mixed resin inside the chamber and then turn on the vacuum pump. This will completely remove any air from the chamber and the resin inside. Doing this will ensure the best, bubble-free results.
But a vacuum chamber is expensive and a little bit overkill for most beginners.
So, the best alternative beginners have is to use a small torch to remove any bubbles that rise to the top. This will be enough to get decently good results with minimal bubbles inside. You simply pour the resin into the mold and then wait for a couple of minutes. Bubbles will rise to the top during the curing process.
Get your torch and carefully touch the surface of the resin with the flame. The bubbles will pop almost instantly.
Repeat this process every few minutes until no more bubbles rise to the top.
Wear Safety Gear when Working With Resin
The final and most important tip for your health is using safety gear. Resin is toxic while it is liquid and during the curing process so always wear a protective mask and gloves.
Make sure that the resin cures in a well-ventilated area and not in your living room or where you sleep!
There are resins that advertise that they are non-toxic and have no odor but I don´t trust them and neither should you. It´s best to still use protective gear even when working with “non-toxic” resins.
