Every once in a while you have a resin piece that needs a topcoat… which is a fancy way of saying a new, thin, glossy layer of resin! Typically resin pieces come straight out of their silicone mold ready to rock… no topcoat needed.
But if you have a matte mold (like a baking mold that doesn’t leave your pieces glossy) then you may need to add a thin topcoat of resin to give it that pretty resin shine!
Of course, the other situation that comes to mind is *ahem* when you need to fix a piece. Say you have a piece of dirt or hair (or a fly!!) in your piece and need to take it out. Once the yuck is out you’ll need to add a topcoat to your piece to add that shine back to the surface.
Topcoat baby!
Luckily it’s an easy process… let’s get started.
Supplies:
- Amazing Clear Cast Resin
- Respirator/Mask (resin graded filters)
- Gloves
- Wagner HT400 Heat Gun
- Freezer Paper
- Silicone Mat
- Baking Pan
- Small Mixing Cups
- Reusable Silicone Stir Sticks
Step 1: Prep your Piece
In this case we’re top-coating a large round trivet (the piece on the right!) that needed to be sanded smooth. See how matte and un-shiny the top of the trivet looks?
That’s what we’re going to fix!
At this point you should have sanded your piece and be ready to rock. Make sure to put your piece up on a pedestal of some kind (a silicone cup works well!) so that any resin that falls off the piece will drip onto the surface and not glue your trivet to the surface.
Then you have to decide… you can use a bit of blue tape to completely tape off the underside of your piece (so that drips can be easily removed) or you can pour just enough resin to topcoat the top (and not drip off the sides).
If you’re not confident in your ability to pour resin without it dripping off the sides then just go ahead and tape the back. You’ll be glad you did!
Step 2: Pour your Resin
Now it’s time to get pouring! For a trivet this size we’re going to mix about 20ml of resin and pour it onto the center of our trivet.
It will start to spread out on it’s own but you’ll need to use your silicone brush to spread it out… just like peanut butter and jelly baby!
Just make sure to brush the resin out slowly so that it doesn’t spill over the sides… or stir up any extra bubbles!
Once you’ve spread out the resin let it sit for about 5 minutes and then you can use your heat gun to pop any bubbles that have risen to the surface.
Beautiful darling!
Now you can cover the entire piece (to prevent dust/hair/flies/yuck from settling in the new topcoat) and leave it to cure for at least 24 hours.
Bright, shiny and new!
Just perfect!
This technique works perfectly for any flat pieces you need to topcoat… and if you need to topcoat a 3-dimensional piece (like these knife rests) you can do the same technique except instead of spreading resin along the surface with a silicone brush you can use gloved fingers to spread resin along all the curves.
Easy peezy!
Looking for more resin tutorials? I’ve got you covered!
You say mix up 20ml for a ‘trivet this size’ but you don’t say what size the trivet is (unless I missed it). Is it the size of a saucer? a dinner plate?
The one in this post is roughly the size of a salad plate… you don’t need much for a topcoat. 20ml would work for a saucer, a salad plate or a dinner plate. You’ll have a bit too much for the smaller sizes but it’s fairly difficult to mix 10ml of a 1:1 ratio resin so 20ml is usually my go-to for topcoats. Hope that helps!
Your supply list mentions freezer paper but not mentioned in method? But you did use silicone brush Can this be cleaned or is it a throwaway job?
Ta
I use freezer paper to protect my work table in every resin project (it’s under the cardboard box in this case) that way if any resin happens to get dropped off the cardboard it won’t hurt my table.
As for the silicone brush it is re-useable. All silicone pieces can be left to dry and then the resin will peel right off. I actually moved to silicone baking sheets instead of cardboard for my resin projects after this post. I put them on baking trays and they’re easy to move around.
Hope that helps!