Frosted Resin Problems With Amazing Mold Putty Molds

We needed a 50mm cabochon for a jewelry project. My daughter had a glass 50mm cabochon she had purchased but it was too heavy for the project we had in mind. A 50mm resin cabochon was the perfect solution because in addition to being clear and shiny, it would also be lightweight. After searching the internet exhaustively the largest commercial cabochon molds I could find were only 38mm in diameter so clearly I needed a custom solution.

Using the Ranger Melt Art Mold-n-Pour silicone putty I created a custom mold using the 50mm glass cabochon. The mold had a small imperfection so I purchased the Amazing Mold Putty from Michaels with a coupon ($11.99 before tax). We made several molds using glass cabochons of different sizes and most of them turned out well, with no "perceptible" imperfections.

Since I had never used the Easy Cast Clear Casting Epoxy before I decided to test with different types of molds. I had a 38mm cabochon mold purchased on Amazon, a paint palette tray that I'd seen used in a TC Beads YouTube video and of course the custom Amazing Mold Putty molds I'd created.

The results were a mixed bag. All the cabochons popped out easily from the paint palette tray, the commercial cabochon mold and the custom silicone putty molds. There was a major difference in how they looked though. The resin cabochons from the paint palette tray and the commercial cabochon mold were clear and shiny with no imperfections. The resin cabochons from the Amazing Mold Putty molds and the single Ranger Melt Art Mold-n-Pour mold all had a frosty look and a rough surface. Very disappointing because I really needed a clear 50mm resin cabochon.

I thought that perhaps I had not properly cleaned or conditioned the silicone putty molds so I cleaned and conditioned them with a Mold Release Conditioner and tried again. Same result. So I started researching the issue of frosted resin on the internet and came up with several links, here, here and here where others had experienced the exact same issue with the Amazing Mold Putty molds. The issue with the cheaper silicone putty is that it does not properly cure and has imperceptible flaws that cause the frosted look.

So I've done a lot more research and watched a lot more YouTube videos. I've decided after watching the Beadaholique Youtube videos, here and here, that my next experiment will be with Easy Mold Silicone Putty and Easy Mold Silicone Rubber. There are more expensive products like Silicone Plastique that have a longer working time so if the Easy Mold products don't work I'll try that next.

Just a note that I do use Amazon links (not affiliate links) a lot because that is where I make a lot of my purchases. Yes, there are online stores that are often cheaper, but just not as fast or consistent with delivery. Case in point, I've been waiting for delivery of a purchase from benfranklin.com for about 6 weeks now, but that's a topic for another day.