Black Araldite?

"Araldite Rapid Steel" cures to a dark grey; there are other variants on that theme (see the adhesives section of B&Q or similar).

If you want black, you can mix regular Araldite with powdered carbon (grind up some wood charcoal, or get a nice smoky candle & coat a bit of scrap with soot, or find someone with a coal fire).

Regards, Tony

The brand of 'Steel Epoxy' that you get from Maplin's is completely black.

-Mark

I use black 'spirit stain' powder ( soluble in meths ). In order to get a really deep black you need to mix a little of the power in and heat the araldite gently.

You can also mix araldite with acrylic paint - and again, a little heat helps to develop the colour.

Regards,

Interesting - does that affect the adhesive/hardness properties at all?

Regards, Tony

Not that I've noticed. I was given the tip by a boffin at araldite themselves ( rather decent of him, I thought, considering they sell tubes of pigment ). I've found it affects the curing time - at least to rock solid. This is an advantage for my line of work as it means the glue remains 'sliceable' longer once it's bonded the work.

Regards,

On or around Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:15:16 +0000, Tony Jeffree enlightened us thusly:

JB weld epoxy steel and JB kwik ditto are both dark grey.

Thanks for the help lads :)

I use powdered carbon fibre rod made using sandpaper. It gives a perfect jet black gloss finish and maybe the short bits of fibre make it stronger too! For White I use Titanium Dioxide. It's a bit messy, but goes a long way. You can get some very professional looking rounded shapes with slow set epoxy by rotating the liquid glue in a stream of hot air as it (more rapidly) sets.

Scrim

Hi again,

Would you have any pointers as to how much acrylic paint to add (I happen to have some lying about!)

I'd start off at 10% and see how it goes. You can get a good idea of the colour saturation as you mix the glue ( heat helps to 'develop' the mix ). I find the lighter the colour, the more paint is needed. I should point out that I've only used this method with standard Araldite - not the Rapid stuff...just in case it makes a difference.

Regards,

Slightly off topic but I've had considerable experience of producing home-made coloured polyester resins, ie Plastic Padding type materials, to match a variety of materials found in ancient buildings. I found one of the most useful sources of pigment to be the small sachets of powder found at builder's merchants and used to colour cement. If too much was added, the over-dry mix could be moistened with fibre-glass resin which also sets with the same hardener as used for PP. The answer is to try Araldite colouring out for yourself, it's cheap enough to experiment with a small quantity and you'll learn far more than relying on somebody elses experience!

I have also emailed Araldite to ask them for information on their pigments. I'll report back when (and 'if') I hear anything. --

Chris Edwards (in deepest Dorset) "....there *must* be an easier way!"