Transcription
hey guys, Stacy Franklin here with Artisan Design Concepts. And today, what I'm going to show you is our most popular design, which was Sonia Stone, but I'm going to do an updated version. Stay tuned. Okay, what I'm using today is Polycoat, and that is a brand new product on the market. It's a hybrid coating that will not yellow. So this design that I've done before was done with epoxy that typically would, you know, amber and yellow over time, and now I can do it without that fear. So I am using about 40 to 42 ounces of white. I've used the Savage Patriot polymers white flooring base color, but he's coming out with a different one that will be for countertops, but this works really good too. I am using about, let's see, 20 ounces of white metallic, and then I have about 15 or 16 ounces or so of alloy. And what I did is I put a drop of white Alumalite dye in this just to lighten it up because I don't want this to have a really dark gray look. And then I have some clear with diamond dust setting up in my cup. We're going to wait and use that much later. And I have some bright gold spray paint that I will use, but I'm going to try that a little bit later in the pour as well. So to start off with, first I am going to put my white along the entire surface, and then we'll add the rest of the colors.
Now you can see this is very, very fluid. So I'm using about 4 ounces per square foot on this design. I don't want it to push over my edges just yet, so I'm just getting it put on the surface. This countertop is about 21 square feet with its edges. Okay, so now I'm just going to use my hand; it's the best tool, and I'm just going to move this around, get it towards my edges, and then I'll start pushing it over my edge as well. But I'm just getting material out. It'll be heavier in some areas, and that's okay because I have a lot more material that I'm pouring out. So this is just going to help it move. It's not a skim coat like I used to do. You can do that, um, but I'm just getting my white out and slowly will add in my rest of my colors all around it. So if I have some empty spots, I'm not too worried about that.
Now there's been some questions about the best way to mix, what kind of additives you can use. As you saw in my description, as I'm going to, I use mica powders. I like to use a little bit of alcohol in the cup first and make a slurry with my micas, and then add my part B in, mix that in with my micas, and then go ahead and mix my A. That just helps everything integrate really well. I've always done it that way, and it works great with this material too. Okay, so here I'm just going to gently rub the edges just so there's something slick on it when I add my other colors and push it over. Come around front. I'm not worried at this time how covered the edges are because I'm going to continue to work that; it's just getting something on there. Now, if you're going to use any paste that is for epoxy, just make sure that that paste is super fluid before putting it in your cups, because sometimes they come a little hard, and you just have to warm them up till they become fluid, otherwise it might be hard to mix that in.
Okay, so I'm going to take the white metallic and I'm going to put it in a smaller cup as I go. I find that it's a little easier to control where this goes in a small cup, so I want to be able to pour a lot of this out and not in huge bands, so this gives me a little bit more control. So right now I'm just getting a general flow going. I want this design to be really soft. Some of my customers like a lot of movement, and I like to have some examples as well of counters that don't have as much movement but has a nice flow. Make sure you pour off your edge a bit. Take that off my edge there. Come around front again. I'm going to blend all this together, so I'm just adding my colors in between so I can move them around. I may not use all of that white metallic; I might leave some in my bucket, but I'm going to add a little more towards the back and then hold on to some in there too.
All right, so now I'm going to do the same thing with my alloy. I may not even use all that alloy; we'll see. I'm going to overlap colors, so put some of the alloy into the white metallic right next to it. I want a good amount of white space next to it. Now that I can finally do white counters, I don't have to hide my white. The little things that make me excited, guys. Don't be afraid; just pour things out. You can have an idea of what you want to do; just go with it. But if it doesn't go exactly as planned, you can always fix it. I know right now it looks very stripy, but don't worry, we're just getting started. I'm going to save my diamond dust for way later. I might even wait an hour and come back and show you what I'm going to do with that, because I want that to hold on top.
All right, going to add some of that bright gold in a cup, but I'm going to do that after I move this around a little bit. So I'm going to take my roller; this is just a 4-inch nap roller. I'm going to push it into this color here just so I can prime it, and I'm going to push this color around. Okay, so I'm going to start here and move my roller at an angle, because I want all of this stuff to integrate and push like a river. Come on back. Can't do it from that direction; just kind of push it right on through. You don't even have to stay in the same pattern, so if you want, you can start to move it across, because that's where all these colors are going to start to look more like an exotic pour when you go across them. You don't have to over-roll it; you can choose to leave some plain. I'm going to push right through here. I'm going to go straight across the design and then come back and move this [Music] guy. I'll come to the front for that, but I'm going to push it right through it. Soften up this edge here, and I'm going to move it. This one I'm just going to kind of follow the swoop for a little bit, and then I'm going to push on through, so you can create a whole new pattern with it. You see how fast this design is made? Super, super quick. I'm going to push some of those colors into each [Music] other, maybe come on back. I make sure it kind of pushes over that edge when I come back down. You can use your roller to help it if you need to. I think I want to do another little swoop like that to kind of make it geode-inspired here, so it can do its own little thing. I can use the tip of the roller just to gently move some of those colors through. I'll come around front. So any bands like I don't want that white metallic kind of standing out that much; I just want that to kind of blend in, so I'm going to push that around, soften that. I'm going to soften right here a bit. I don't want big bands of this alloy, so I'll just let that kind of flow and start to move.
All right, so anywhere you see like, you know, just colors like this, it doesn't look like it's been touched, right? So you can leave it if you like it, but I don't, so I'm going to move my color through it, trying not to disturb what I like. Come back through that right through the edge. Want to break up this. So the goal of this design is to have a little bit of warmth. A lot of customers, they have warmer tones in their flooring, so this allows a little bit of warmth in there as well as the white and the gray, so that way it's got the cool and the warm tones. And you can see this design along the edge; look how beautiful that's holding. I didn't have to tape this. I don't have to wait. It looks awesome. I'll go around and check all my edges. Anywhere that there may be like a hole, you could just take a little bit on your fingers and just kind of help it along. It's still going to be flowing right now, so always check and make sure that your edges are completely covered. So consider that when you're figuring out how much to use per square foot. A lot of people think about the top and they don't think that their edges are important, but you need enough material for it to flow over and do its thing. I'm going to just wipe touch any holes right now. The entire piece is covered completely. It's laying out flat. So far I'm really happy with it. I'm going to step back and look for a moment and see: is there anything that's too busy or too boring? But if you come in close, you can actually see that the colors are automatically selling and breaking apart. This is a really cool spot right here. See that? It's all broken up. All these cells are created. So cool. You can use a stick to help it along if you wanted to, like break something up and create like a small line, things like that.
I'm going to show you what I do with the, um, using the white metallic or the alloy with the gold. Doing it a little later in the pour helps it hold, but, um, when you do it early, it kind of breaks apart and creates a really cool stone effect, so I'll show you what that looks like. So I just have a little of the alloy in my cup, just a little, and I'm spraying the bright gold spray paint right in it. Okay, you could even see it kind of fighting itself in there. Can you see the cells just wants to create? And then I'm going to kind of pour some dainty veins, and I may actually switch cups, but let's see. So I like to hold it kind of like this if I do it in a cup, so that way I can control where it's going. Okay, here we go. So I'm going to pour this out really small, just kind of following the design and letting it do its thing. Now you can see it kind of breaking apart in there, and it'll continue to do that as this moves. The later you do this in the pour, the more it'll hold together, but I kind of liked what it looked like when it broke apart, so I'm going to do the same thing in just a couple of spots. Now whatever color you want behind it, you can put this spray it in white if you want white, you know, whatever. Doesn't have to be with the alloy, just whatever color. You can scoop it off your table if you want. I might actually do that because I want a little bit of the white in the background of this with the gold, so I'm going to scoop a little of this into my cup, just a little bit of a lighter tone than just the darker alloy, and then I'll spray. And then we will do... what do I want to go with this? Let's see. I kind of want to go across. Let's try from here. Let's see if I can reach all the way there. Okay, all right. Okay, so I put some of my diamond dust in there with the gold. Let's see what that does. So I'm going to fill in this kind of white area. I don't know if I like it with the diamond dust there; looks a little beige-y. H, I don't think I'm a fan of that one. So all right, here's what you do, guys. If you say you just did that right, you didn't like that section because I don't; I think it's just too beige. I'm going to scoop up some of the other color, maybe use some of this white metallic that I've got, and I'm going to pour right over it. And then I'm going to grab my roller and I'm going to work that in. So I'm going to push this through here. Not that I like with that little hint of the gold, pull some of that gray through. Let it drip down my edges. Think I might add a little more of that alloy right in that section. Now here's the cool thing: I added a little extra mica powder, right? You're supposed to use about 10%. I like my stuff pretty pigmented, but that'll make your material set up faster. So keeping that in mind is that I wanted it to thicken up a little quicker because we've been pouring for, I don't know, 25 minutes since the time we mixed, and I want to be able to have things set up. So you can add a little more mica if you need that working time to kind of quicken. Grab this again. I'm going to push gently that all way around, so that way it creates its own sort of agate effect. That looks really cool, actually. I like that. All right, so I took more scoops off the table and added some gold. I'm just going to add one more little vein back here just to balance out that counter. Soell come with me. There we are. So I may actually stop right there and add a little more gold and go back over it since I lost my gold at the end, and start this direction. Hello, come with me. I'm just going to let it feather it all out.
Now if you get a drip somewhere that you don't like, like oops, I didn't want that to go there, just move your stick through it. I love to do these baby veins, and that happens just by taking my stick and pushing some colors around. Even this gold works really well that way. Anywhere that looks kind of boring, do the same thing, or if it just looks incomplete like here, this gray. I know some people are like, "Look, it looks fine. What are you talking about?" But I might just take that and feather that guy out right, maybe connect it over here, kind of just make it kind of disappear, just like you would see on natural stone with fractures. So I have my clear with the diamond dust. It's only been maybe 30 minutes; it's still super fluid, so I'm going to give it a long time if I want to add a bunch. But I just want to show you that it will hold and create some cool effects on its own, but, and then it'll spread out. But obviously it's going to spread right now because it's thin. But this is what the diamond dust – someone asked me how does diamond dust look – and you can see, yes, you can still see it pop, you know, as long as you have a nice bright color under there that definitely sparkles, and that should hold pretty well. But if you want it to be like a thin little diamond dust vein, wait for this to get thicker, and then come in and do some fractures with it. I might do that on this too. You don't need to overdo diamond dust, but it's nice to give it a little bit of bling. So you can take a little bit of color on your stick if you want, just kind of do these little tiny veins. Whatever you start on top, just help it along, help that flow, so it looks like it was meant to be there. I didn't have to torch this. I don't need any alcohol. It looks fantastic. All the edges are holding. Pattern's holding. I really like it. I don't really see anything that I don't like. There's all kinds of interesting selling going on, but not overdone. It's not like the entire piece is all selled up, but it's exactly what I normally would do on an exotic pour with epoxy. So, um, I love the effects that I'm getting with hardly any work. Usually this would take me hours. I'd have to tape it. I'd have to come back and pull the tape. I'd have to wipe the drips. In five hours I'll be able to wipe these drips in about an hour and a half, maybe two hours tops. But I love what it's doing. I'm making sure all my edges are covered. They are. I'm really happy with it.
Okay, it's been over an hour since I finished pouring, and now this diamond dust is a nice thicker consistency. So if I wanted to add this anywhere for it to stay, for instance here, now would be the time. So it's about an hour and 45 minutes, I'd say. It kind of sits on top for a little bit, but I think it's going to sink right in. Let's see. Where else? I love how this gold looks. I feel like I want to maybe follow that vein. Let's see. Let's come from this direction. And now that diamond dust will sit right on top, but it will settle in. You can already see this is sinking in right here. So this little section looks really cool. I love right here has already got the diamond dust kind of pulled into it. See a little dust piece. So I'm going to pull that guy out. Now if you have to do this late like this, and I'm kind of chunking this up, you can take a torch to soften that, and it's gone. See? Just like that. You can do the same thing where your diamond dust is sitting; if you wanted to just kind of sit down a little, just take a torch to it real quick. E.