Hey Everyone, so I have finally decided to try my hand a little resin work. I have been looking in to the Glasscast line, will these be OK for a beginner?

Hi Craig, There's certainly no reason why not - We've tried to make them simple to use but also make sure that there is lots of information about them including video tutorials, technical/instructional datasheets and there's also the opportunity to contact us by email, telephone, through the website or via the forum as per this post and we always have technical support staff on hand to assist.

The most important thing is to spend some time soaking in the information; the materials are all easy enough to get along with as long as you follow the instructions. If you are methodical, the resin is very easy to use; there are generally only three things that catch people out and if you do your best to avoid these from happening, you shouldn’t have any issues.

1)    Most Epoxy Resin (such as the GlassCast range) need to remain at around 20°C + for the entire curing time. If the temperature is much below 20°C, it will stall the cure and give rise to potential problems so keep the room nice and warm before and during pouring the resin.

2)    The resins have very specific mix ratios. For the GlassCast 3, this is 2:1 by weight which means that you need to be accurate with your mix, and in essence for every 200g of resin, you need to mix in 100g of hardener – this does need to be weighed and not worked out by volume.

The GlassCast 10 and 50 are slightly different and can either be mixed by weight or by volume. By volume it is 2:1 so for 200ml of resin, you need to mix in 100ml of hardener. If you choose to weigh it, the mix ratio is 100:45 which in effect means that for every 100g of resin, you need 45g of hardener.

3)    Make sure you thoroughly mix the resin, spend a good few minutes mixing, ensuring that you scrape the sides, bottom and corners of your mixing bucket. Any unmixed resin simply won’t cure so you need to be through and spend time ensuring it is fully mixed and for this reason, we always recommend double potting; mixing thoroughly in one pot before transferring to a second pot for a final mix; by doing so, any unmixed resin tends to remain clinging to the sides of the first pot ensuring it gets nowhere near your project.

I hope this helps but if you need any help or clarification, don't hesitate to get in touch.

I assume that the resin left in the first pot doesn't upset the accurate measuring and resin:hardener ratio? :-)

No, we're talking about such a fine film that the dregs left behind is within tolerance - you obviously need to use a degree of discretion as if you're mixing very small quantities (10-20g) then it may be impractical but then mixing such small quantities is always problematic as far as accuracy is concerned.