Made my first batch today and I'm pretty darn pleased if I do say so myself !! made (6) 6 '' pieces , nice way to spend the afternoon waiting for more blade steel to arrive I'll post some pics when wife and camera get home !!
I think the first attempt at any new project will leave opening for improvement. Getting the correct amount of epoxy into the 1/4'' tube was interesting. My 1st and 2nd tube was just a mere guess and after sliding in my mosaic acces I found my self adding a tad more of epoxy to fill up the tube. My 3rd and 4th tubes were pretty much bang on.......you want epoxy to overflow a bit filling all the void places for a good bond. I bought all my pieces from a local hobby shop including acrylic colored paint , did 2 in black epoxy and 2 in red for a fraction of the cost of buying. Hopefully they turn out , let them set over night and I'm heading to the shop to have a peek right now !!
Good morning , here's a couple pics to share , hopefully the pics are not to big as I didn't re size so please forgive if they're large....... I'm sure you've all seen mosaic pin building and tutorials but this was fun to try !! first is a picture of my $25 supply purchase which also included acrylic paint seen in pic #2 second is a simple stand to hold the 1/4'' tube that I cut into 6'' lengths. Brass and copper rounds with brass squares cut into 6'' lengths as well and dipped into the epoxy and here is my very simple trial run finished , the sky is the limit as far as mosaic pins go thanks for looking , feel free to ask or comment away Rob in Kelowna
Thanks for this, Rob. Those pins look great and considering the price most suppliers charge for them, it's a very worthwhile project for any maker.
I've heard of using a aquarium pump to draw the epoxy up the tube. Haven't tried it yet. They look pretty good.
Use a 12 cc syringe and push it in. I have made over 100 of them and it works great. The biggest problem is getting all the grease and oil out of the tubes to get them clean inside or else the epoxy or resin doesn't want to stick to the brass sometimes.
syringe is a good idea Cal... I shortened my tubes for cleaning purposes, used a q-tip to swab the inside clean.......... here is a few I did last night, a finer grit will sharpen the edges up, this was a quick sand with grit that was to heavy............will clean them up later tonight
