 It's video Friday and today we are going to talk about bubbles. I'm going to give you my top 10 tips for minimizing bubbles. Okay, let's get started. Number one is your room temperature, your resin room temperature. Now it's not too bad now, but as we're heading into the colder months, you want to make sure your room is warm, at least room temperature or even warmer. So what we like to do here at the studio is throw on a space heater the day before we're going to resin if it's a really, really cold day. Okay, so that's tip number one. Tip number two is the temperature of your resin. Again, in the winter months, your resin can get really cold if the room is cold. So we really like using a water bath, but always make sure you keep the lids on before you put them in the bath. Leave them in there for 10 to 15 minutes or so. Make sure you thoroughly dry them off before you open the bottles and mix. You don't want any water getting into your resin mixture. Okay, so that's tip number two. Tip number three is to seal, especially when you're dealing with organic objects like wood, like paper, fabric, leaves, that kind of thing. They all hold trapped air, which can off gas in the form of bubbles. So now if you have a paper project, especially paper collage where your paper's layered, there might be trapped air in there. You can use a spray sealant like this. And then for things like wood that might have nooks and crannies and crevices. I really like using a brush on sealant. You can use like Mod Podge or another brush on sealant that dries clear. You can use a disposable foam brush and you can really, really get into those nooks and crannies. Okay, so sealing your work is another way to minimize bubbles. Next tip now is stirring your resin. You don't want to stir it like you're whipping egg whites or you're beating cream. You want to stir it slowly and deliberately. The faster you mix, you're going to incorporate more and more air and more and more air means more and more bubbles. Now, I'm super guilty of this because I love to bake. So sometimes I go at this like I'm whipping egg whites and you can see. See, this is nice and slow and deliberate. I'm scraping the sides as I go, right? So I'm not getting too much bubbles in there. If I keep going like this for three minutes, I won't get too much in the way of bubbles. But watch when I start, I'm guilty of this sometimes. Look at all those bubbles. Mix slowly, less bubbles. Tip number five, pour slowly and pour deliberately. Same thing as when you don't want to mix too fast to incorporate too much air. We also don't want to pour too fast, okay? So just pour in the center and pour nice and slowly. Okay, if you just dump it all out, we're going to get lots and lots of air mixed in there. Pour slowly. Tip number six is to use a torch. It really is the best, best, best tool for getting rid of bubbles. Check it out. There they go. Tip number seven is to pour in 1 eighth of an inch layers. Art resin was designed to be poured in thin applications. So it's not so bad pouring on something like this. It's going to self-level to 1 eighth of an inch. But if you're pouring into a mold, this one, for example, is half an inch deep. So if I were to pour a half an inch worth of resin in one go, the bubbles will never be able to escape to the top to get torched. Art resin has a beautiful thick consistency and the bubbles just can't get through it to get torched out. So you're better off to pour in layers. I would say at least three or four layers at a time to fill one of these. Okay, so pour in layers. That's your next tip. Tip number seven to help get rid of bubbles is to use a light source after you've poured and after you've spread and after you torched. Just in case you missed a few bubbles. So if you're working by a window, this is perfect. If not, you can use the flashlight on your smartphone here, okay? So just shine it on your work, get right down at eye level and you might end up seeing clusters of bubbles this way that you didn't see before. So a flashlight is a really, really good tool to keep on hand when you're working with your resin. Tip number nine is to have toothpicks on hand as well. So we always keep these handy when we're working. Here at the studio, if you do happen to see a bubble or even a bit of hair or dust, you can pick it up. But with bubbles, you can pop them with a toothpick. You can even drag them right off your surface onto the side. So toothpicks are super handy to keep. Okay, so those were my top nine tips to help minimize bubbles. If you end up with bubbles in your cured resin, it happens sometimes. It's not the end of the world, you can fix it. What you need to do is sand down the bubbles, use a coarse sandpaper. I'll use 80 grit here at the studio. You want a coarse sandpaper, sand down your bubbles, but you also need to sand the entire surface and then pour a fresh coat. It's really, like it's almost impossible to spot fix. So don't forget, sand down the entire surface, pour yourself a fresh coat and believe me, it's gonna look perfect again. That's it. Your top 10 tips for minimizing bubbles. Join us next week for Video Friday. Video Friday with the resin. Oh, thank God that's over.