Turning Araldite brown.

[hansomcommon]

Does anyone know what I can add to Araldite to turn it brown so that I can use it to cast knobs with the colouring built in please?

[Nuvistor]

Found this on Amazon, any use?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CASTIN-CRAFT...poxy+resin+dye

[MotorBikeLes]

I seem to recall some modern "plastic wood fillers" are both brown and epoxy based.
You could try a DIY shop.
Les.

[emeritus]

Last year I made some brown Araldite to mend a large earthenware plant pot by grinding a piece of broken flower pot in my wife's kitchen pestle and mortar (it was her pot and she had broken it!) to a fine powder and adding that to the Araldite. The (glossy) coloured Araldite is significantly darker than the original (matt) flower pot, and brown rather than dark red.

If you need to make white knobs, when I was a vacation student with STC in the late 1960's they used to add Titanium Dioxide powder to Araldite to turn it white to improve the appearance of encapsulated items.

[Michael Maurice]

I've not had much luck with Araldite, the original 24 hour setting one is the bext, the others dont seem to set hard.

The best thing for casting is fibre glass epoxy resin. Cast it then spray it whatever colour you like. It dries very very hard

[Restoration73]

Some DIY advice often quoted is to add powdered coffee to white emulsion paint to make
brown paint shades - so this would mimic the organic nature of bakelite plastic if needed.

[dseymo1]

How about grinding up fatally-damaged knobs of the same shade to make a filler powder?
If you have nothing suitable, I'm sure a request here would be successful.

[hansomcommon]

Many thanks for the idears & info everyone, I have a lot to go on, I only use the old slow Araldite, now called "Standard" which does seem to make good solid knobs & is in fact cheaper to buy for small items than the normal casting resin.

[richrussell]

Have a look at the laminate flooring repair kits in places like B&Q - they consist of several bottles of brown dyes and a resin that you mix to get a perfect colour match. You should be able to use the dyes with any epoxy resin and might give you a decent match.

[Martin Bush]

Hi All

I am reading this with interest and wanted to ask about grinding up knobs.

I'd read somewhere that some bakelite could include asbestos as a filler/ bulking material.

Is this the case and, if so, is there a way to spot this?

Martin

[camtechman]

I used to use genuine Araldite two part epoxy for several years but found that RS Components' own version better for drying & hardness.

I also discovered that, with the RS product, instead of mixing identical quantities of resin & hardener, it would set faster and harder with only half the amount of hardener !!!

For colouring, I use good old Humbrol Enamel paint (well stirred before use). After first mixing the resin & hardner and as fast as you can, let a small drop of paint drip onto the epoxy and stir in with a separate stick and add more drops of paint to achieve a colour match. However, the colour does darken slightly after drying.

If you don't want a too glossy finish, use matt paint.

[hansomcommon]

Thanks again, I have just done a small test with coffee, cheap instant, & its looking good. Have to wait to see if it goes off ok.

[kellys_eye]

Car body repair kits are a good place for the casting materials but dyes intended for colouring wax will also colour epoxy. They can be ordered in any colour - even Pantone colours - for a couple of quid for a small tub.

As an extra note - mixing wax dye with water pipe solvents will also allow you to colour PVC if you ever need to.

[Malcolm G6ANZ]

A very high level of radiation will turn Araldite brown It also makes it very brittle.

Malcolm