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Anyone know if it's possible to use acrylic inks to tint something like smoothcast 300 resin?

I just placed my resupply order with blick and ordered a mess of inks to make washes with, but I was thinking about tinting my resin so it's not so damn white. Would the acrylic ink hold up in the resin? Would it interfere with the cure?

Anyone got experience with this?

I have cast a fair amount of things. I use dollar store eye shadow to tint my resin and color works but darker colors are best. Its powder based and adds a bit of color but doesnt effect paint. After much trial and error this is the best I have found. Seems wierd I know but it really works very well. Just crush it into a powder and add to the resin mix when you mix the 2 parts.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
I have cast a fair amount of things. I use dollar store eye shadow to tint my resin and color works but darker colors are best. Its powder based and adds a bit of color but doesnt effect paint. After much trial and error this is the best I have found. Seems wierd I know but it really works very well. Just crush it into a powder and add to the resin mix when you mix the 2 parts.

good tip! Dollar store supplies are always useful. Do you have any ratios worked out for how much powdered pigment to how much resin? My resin batches tend to be only about 1 tsp per mixing.

I'm still looking to find out if anyone's ever tried inks. I'm going to have quite a lot, so if it works it would save me even the trip to the dollar store. Other resin tinting ideas, experiences, knowledge are most welcome as well.

Inks are water based and water does not play well with polyurethane resin unless you REALLY like bubbles...

timd wrote:
Inks are water based and water does not play well with polyurethane resin unless you REALLY like bubbles...

oh chemistry, thwarting me again.

Yeah, I treid inks. It was a big fail . ratio is pretty low really, just depends on how dark you want to tint it. I mostly did it by eye just added a bit of brown and black eye shadow in when I mixed. I used a hobby knife to scoop out the eye shadow and the end of that knife to crush it. IIRC It was like 3 scoops worth for about a quarter cup of mixed resin. It made the resin greyish in color.

I think I'll drop by a dollar store tonight and see what I can find. Sounds promising.

Smoothon makes resin dyes that work really well.

I have used them, and it takes a VERY SMALL amount (like, really small, like less than a drop) to tint resin.

http://www.smooth-on.com/Urethane-Plastic-a/c5_1119_1213/index.html

best of luck!

Try oil paints. Or better urethane paints. They should be more compatible than water based acrylics.
weathering pigments might work well too as theyre basically just pigment. Seems quite likely that the resin colours you can buy from resin suppliers are just pigment powders ground to a reasonable size, maybe suspended in a compatible liquid.

Haha a drop or two of some dark walnut stain might just do the trick.