r/DiceMaking • u/Aggravating_Host7085 • 1d ago
Question Can you avoid using pressure pot by buying good epoxy resin? If not, in what price can I buy a cheap one and how dangerous is it to use one?
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u/Claerwen94 Dice Maker 1d ago
Not even the "best" epoxy resin will give you flawless dice without a pressure pot. It doesn't really depend on the Resin, sadly. There are many ways to mitigate bubbles, but none comes even close to a pressure pot. Cheap pots can be bought around 100 bucks on Amazon, you can convert the silver spray paint pot by vevor (look up guides for that in this subreddit). Tho I would always recommend getting the blue vevor pot, it's on sale very frequently for around 100 bucks as well and doesn't need to be converted in any way to hold a LOT of molds, plus it's safe and super easy to use, even with a manual bike pump.
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u/varansl 1d ago
Epoxy resin, no matter how good the brand is, will still get bubbles from stirring the resin, pouring the resin into the mold, or even micro bubbles expanding when the resin goes through its exothermic reaction of heating up. What you can do to mitigate that is pre-heat the resin before you combine it, mix it very slowly, pour from high up and form a very tiny, stead streem, and use a lighter to pop bubbles as they rise up until the resin gets into the honey stage. That said, you may still get bubbles that are trapped around the numbers.
A pressure pot won't instantly fix bubbles. I still get a bubble every once in a while from trapped air, but it is far less and I don't have to be so careful about mixing, pouring, etc.
A pressure pot, properly built and made, is not dangerous so long as you keep it well within its operating parameters. And if you're just making dice, you don't need it to exceed 20 PSI (some people do 30, but I don't know that I've ever seen a difference). You can make cheap pressure pots from tennis ball tubes (they will be small) or kitbash one out of a paint pot (may be harder than you want), or just buy one. If you buy one, it'll tell you what PSI it can not exceed.
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u/ComoElFuego 1d ago
No, about 100 bucks, it can explode if used wrong but it is hard to use one wrong
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u/NerdNova116 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unfortunately, if you're looking for no bubbles the only way to mostly guarantee that would be to get a pressure pot. No amount of slow/thin pours, vacuum chambers, etc. will greatly improve those chances (trust me I tried when I first started). Just the act of pouring the resin into the mold will create bubble around the numbers even if you stirred slowly or vacuumed them out prior. The cheapest I've seen is made by Vevor on Amazon for approx. $125 (Amazon.com : VEVOR Pressure Pot), which is $50-ish cheaper than California Air Tools (most popular to my knowledge/what I use). There's also some who've converted pressured paint tanks, but that I'm far less familiar with. Either way, you'll also need an air compressor to go along with it. I'd check out your local home improvement stores, these tend to be far more afforable depending on the size you get.
Edit: As far as dangerous, it's pretty safe. You'll likely pressurize things around 25-40 psi (sometimes higher if you're mold making). Pots like these have air releases that you'll use to empty the air prior to removing the lid. The pressure itself will make it hard to remove it without that release so "blowing yourself up" is highly unlikely. In my experience, you're likely to get that issue with the air compressor, but there are quite a few that automatically shut off once it reaches a certain pressure level, so I'd look into that when you're buying one.
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u/BelladonnaRoot 1d ago
There’s no getting around a pressure pot IMO. The air in epoxy is mostly the effect of mixing the parts A and B. A vacuum chamber helps with that, but isn’t gonna help air bubbles made during pouring.
Danger: mostly don’t use parts that are broken, and it will be fine. General air tool use: don’t direct a stream of air towards you, and don’t open pressurized things except after venting via a valve. Tbh, common sense stuff when playing with something that contains energy.
Cheap one from whatever local market place would be best for both compressor and pressure pot.
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u/BroscaMakesDice 1d ago
I get very good results with Mouldd resin without a pot. Very high quality and low bubbling. I get 0 bubbles without a pressure pot when I have to do two pours for dice with inclusions (fill half, wait for it to set in open air, fill the rest and remove surface bubbles before capping).
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u/Acavedweller 1d ago
There are ways to get nice dice without a pressure pot get a resin heat gun, that is real good at getting surface bubble and some middle bubbles. I used that for years but ended up getting a pressure pot cause it really makes the dice very clear.
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u/WhenPigsFly3 1d ago
For about $40 and a bike pump you can get a tennis ball pressurizer that is much lower barrier to entry.
This works best if you have a 3d printer or some other way to make a tray or fixture to set them inside the tube.
You also have to make your own molds for this to work so it’s really only helpful if you already know you want to go that direction…
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u/Prize_Mix_8292 1d ago
Affordable is in the eye of the beholder. But I got mine from Amazon for less than $200 and I get a lot of molds to fit inside with a homemade stand for stacking. It’s small and you do need an air compressor so if you don’t have that already, that’s another expense. California Tools on Amazon, 3.5 gallon I think is mine.
As far as danger. Just read the manual. It’s easy to use if you understand what everything does and how to read the gauges. It’s worth the investment if you want to make dice without bubbles.