 Hey guys, so one of the most frequently asked questions we get here at Art Resin is, do I really have to use a torch to get rid of bubbles? In short, the answer is yes. Nothing beats the intensity of a flame for really zapping out bubbles in your resin work. So from filling it to using it, from butane to propane, we're gonna walk you through everything you need to know to really get rid of bubbles in your resin work and give you the pro results you're looking for. So when you mix your resin and hardener together, you're gonna be incorporating air, which is going to be incorporating bubbles. Now bubbles aren't necessarily a bad thing. It means that you've done a very good job mixing your resin and hardener together, but we do want to get rid of these for a perfect flawless finish. So when you pour your resin mixture over your piece, you'll start to notice bubbles rising to the surface. This is because our resin contains a degassing agent, which helps bubbles rise to the surface. Now some of these bubbles will pop on their own, but we're gonna want to get rid of the rest before the resin starts to thicken and cure, and the best tool for the job is a torch. Let's go through one by one, some of the more commonly used methods to get rid of bubbles. The first one is popping them with a pin or with a toothpick. Now bubbles will pop when you pop them with a toothpick for sure, but it is absolutely unrealistic to try and do your entire piece with a toothpick. In fact, the resin will cure before you actually make your way around the painting. So the toothpick is good for last-minute touch-ups, but not for getting rid of bubbles. Now the second method is to blow the bubbles out. So some people like to blow directly on the artwork or you can use a straw. It gives you a little more of a concentration with the airflow and it helps to control the air a bit more. Again, this isn't really a realistic method. Here I can show you. Again, this is a really labor-intensive way of getting rid of bubbles. I couldn't even imagine trying to do a large canvas blowing with a straw. This might be effective if you're doing something really small like jewelry, but for a larger piece, it's not realistic at all. So blowing out bubbles, not that your best choice. Now the next method commonly used is a hairdryer. Now we're introducing some heat, which is a step in the right direction. But when you think about a hairdryer, what does it do? It blows hot air. So what do you think that's doing to your wet resin work? It's blowing dust and hair and bits of things floating in the air right onto your wet art resin. So probably not the best idea. Another reason maybe not to use a hairdryer is that it does push the resin around. And if you're using a technique like doming like I did on this piece, it's going to push your resin. So it's going to ruin my doming. I don't even want to demonstrate it because it's going to push my doming right over the edge and ruin it. So that's another reason not to use a hairdryer. Some people do like to use a hairdryer when you're doing things like flow art. It can push the tinted resin around and create some really cool effects. But for getting rid of bubbles, it's best to keep your hairdryer for your hair. Okay, so next we have a heat gun. Now things are looking up. This is definitely more effective than blowing through a straw. It's better than poking with a toothpick and it's significantly hotter than a hairdryer. But here take a look. Now it is getting rid of the bubbles, but it's also pushing my resin around which can disturb my doming and it's also blowing hot air which can introduce dust and hair and other bits of junk into my wet resin, which we don't want. Just like with a hairdryer, some artists like to use a heat gun when pouring flow art pieces. Both a heat gun and a hairdryer can push the tinted resin layers around, creating cells, lacing and other cool effects. So although you can use a heat gun, we can still do better than this. And that would be a torch. We're saving the best for last here. The torch is the most effective way to get rid of bubbles and it has the added advantage of incinerating any surface dust that might be on your piece as well. Let's take a peek and you can see the difference for yourself. So the torch is so effective at getting rid of bubbles with ease and efficiency to give you a flawless finish. And once you're done torching, check your piece in the light with a toothpick to fish out any bits of dust or pop any stray bubbles. And last step, always remember to cover your work with a dust cover to protect it while it cures. Now if you're intimidated by the idea of using a torch, please don't be. Whether it's a small handheld torch or a larger propane torch, the process is super easy and I'm going to show you everything that you need to know from filling it to using it. So let's start with our handheld artist torch. This is a butane powered torch and it works beautifully on most projects. Now to fill these torches, you're going to need to pick up butane canisters and you can get these easily at any hardware store. Now what you're going to want to look out for is the type of butane canister that you're buying. If you notice here, these are all slightly different. I'll show you. This one here has this sort of collar on it and you can see the nozzle is very very short on this one compared to these two. It's got a smaller kind of collar here and the nozzle is much bigger. So it's really important that you familiarize yourself with your torch before you buy your canister. If you notice on this torch, the refill valve is actually recessed in the bottom here. So if I were to try to fill it with this canister that's got the short nozzle, it's actually not going to fit. I have to use one of these that's got a longer nozzle and will fit inside. Okay, and this one here, if you'll notice on the bottom, it's got a flat base. The refill valve is flat as opposed to this one here. You can see the difference that's recessed. Okay, so this one I actually can use any of these canisters to refill it. They all work equally well. Let's see, that one works just fine and this one with the collar, that works too. So now I'm going to show you how to fill the torch. So let's get these out of the way. Okay, so the first thing you want to do is take the torch off its base and you want to make sure that the valve is off. Okay, so we'll just put that into the off position and it's really important when you're filling with the BJ canister, you want to make sure that you're doing it upside down. So hold the torch upside down, get your canister, make sure it's absolutely in alignment. You don't want to fill it on an angle like this because you might have some leaking gas issues. You want to make sure it's absolutely in alignment and basically you just insert the nozzle into the valve and press down. Okay, and you're just going to hold it down. You depress it until you hear sort of a sputtering sound. And when it starts to sputter, you know, it's full. There we go, see? And that's it. So don't worry if there's a little bit of butane that leaked on top. It'll evaporate basically immediately as soon as it hits the air. Okay, so now that you've filled it, next step is to let it sit. Okay, and the reason you want to let it sit is just to let that butane kind of warm up, come up to room temperature and expand. And your torch will work much more efficiently if you let it sit first. Now to fill this torch, the process is going to be exactly the same. But remember, because you've got this recess valve, you want to make sure you get the right butane canister. Okay, so just insert it, depress it, fill it in until it starts to sputter and then let it rest and you're good to go. All right, now for the fun part, I'm going to show you how to use the torch. So to turn the torch on, it couldn't be easier. Okay, so what we're going to want to do first is take the gas control knob here and just move it into the middle position here like that. Next, we're going to want to locate the child safety latch. Now that's located just underneath the ignition button. Okay, so the child safety latch is here. We're just going to want to click it down. Okay, next we're going to want to turn the flame on by depressing the ignition button. Okay, so we're going to turn it on. Okay, and once you have it on, keep your finger depressed. You're going to want to locate the on-off switch here. Okay, and then just turn it on and this gives you a continuous flame. Okay, so now we have our flame and we can adjust the intensity of the flame using this gas control knob here. Okay, so we can turn it down or we can turn it up. All right, now we're ready to torch out our bubbles. So what you're going to want to do is hold the flame close enough to the surface of your resin. So it's lightly touching the resin and you should be able to see the bubble start to disappear before your eyes. If you don't, you can move in a little bit closer. Okay, so here we go. This is my favorite part. It never gets old watching those bubbles just incinerate and it gives you the most beautiful glass-like finish. I just love it. All right, well that looks good. Okay, and last step now, we're just going to look at it in the light and make sure there aren't any bubbles that we missed or any little bits of dust or anything that might have floated down into the resin. It actually looks really good. There's a little bit of dust there. Just grab that. Yeah, it looks fantastic. Okay, now we just want to cover it to protect it from dust while it cures. Okay, so I've got my dust cover handy here. I'm just going to cover it up and we will see how it looks tomorrow. Some torches are different to operate though. This one for example, all you need to do is turn the gas control knob on and then we're going to turn the ignition switch, depress the button and there's your flame. So, since every torch is different, always make sure you read the instructions so that you familiarize yourself with how it works before you use it. Now, what if you have a really large piece of artwork? Let me show you. For larger pieces of artwork, a propane torch is exactly what you need. This is Art Resin's propane torch head and it's super easy to use. Basically, all you have to do is attach it onto a propane tank like one of these here. Now, these are easily found at any hardware store. This one I found in the camping section and this one here was in the department where they sell soldering supplies and they both work equally well. This one might be a little bit easier to hold but they are both absolutely fine. So, basically all you do is just lift the cap off here and we're just going to screw it onto the tank. Okay, so just tighten it there and then now we just want to open the valve to release the gas. And then we're going to click the igniter button and then you can use the valve to adjust the flame up or down and that's it. Super easy to use and it absolutely is the best tool for large pieces of artwork. So, we've got our large piece here. This one is 36x48. The resin has been poured and spread and now we're ready to get rid of those bubbles. Now, although you could use the butane torch for this one, what you really want is your propane torch. The propane torch is going to make short work of getting rid of those bubbles. Let me show you. So, we've got our butane torch. Let me just turn it on. Okay. Now, this is getting rid of the bubbles but you can see the flame is much smaller and I can only do these kind of small sweeps here. Now, it is working but let's take a look at this one. The flame is much bigger, as you can see and because of that, it allows me to do these really broad strokes and it's just zapping those bubbles. An added benefit of using a propane torch on larger pieces is that the tank holds more gas which allows for a longer runtime. So, there you go. For pro results on a large piece like this, a propane torch is definitely the way to go. So, now that you have a better idea about how a torch works, here are a few things just to keep in mind next time you're torching one of your pieces. So, the whole idea with torching is simply to warm the resin up. It just thins out the viscosity which allows the bubbles to release and really you can achieve this just with a quick pass of the torch. Maybe one or two passes with the torch is more than enough to release those bubbles. I know it can be tempting to torch more than that just to try and get every single bubble out but it really is not necessary. In fact, if you torch too much, you run the risk of over torching. You'll know you've over torched when you look at your cured resin. Over torched resin has surface imperfections on it so you might get dimples and little spots. You could get waves in your resin and if you've really over torched you might even cause the resin to yellow and you could even scorch it and burn it. So, remember one or two quick passes with the torch is all you need to get rid of bubbles just simply to keep in mind. Now, when it comes to working with silicone molds, over torching with a flame can lead to scorched molds. Using a heat gun can be a good option for getting rid of surface bubbles without the risk of scorching your molds. So, the next thing to be aware of is adding foreign agents to art resin. Art resin on its own is non-flammable. It contains no solvents so it releases no fumes or VOCs but this isn't the case when you add foreign agents to it like say alcohol ink. Alcohol is a solvent. It's highly flammable so you definitely don't want to expose it to a naked flame. Now, if you want to tint your resin without a flammability risk, art resin's line of resin tint is a great solution. Resin tint is a collection of 24 non-toxic colorants that can be safely torched once mixed with art resin. The last thing to remember is always exercise caution and common sense when working with a naked flame. Please remember when you're lighting your torch to direct the flame away from you. Never leave a lit torch unattended and when you're torching make sure there are no paper towels or rags or any other flammable objects on your work surface. So, whether you feel more comfortable using a butane torch like our artist's torch or for bigger pieces using a propane torch, once you've used a torch to get rid of bubbles, you will never want to go back to any other method. I promise.