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If you are an artist working with epoxy resin, and you are wondering how to get epoxy out of your cups, you have come to the right place.
We love creating art with resin here at DIY Craft Club, and we have learned so many tips and tricks along the way. We have done so much research into resin and the absolute, most important thing to remember is the safety precautions you should take. Please check out our article, Epoxy Resin Safety Precautions or you can watch our resin safety video below.
You can get resin out of your cups if you let the resin cure for the full cure time, usually around 72 hours, then removing the dried, cured epoxy from the cups by peeling away from the mixing cup material. The mixing cup must be made from a material that will release the resin though, continue reading to learn more.
We have some great tips for getting epoxy out of your resin mixing cups, and we are going to share our best with you!
This is an option that works very well, but if you are creating resin art daily or weekly, this may not be the best option for you or the environment. I think it is always good to have some disposable cups on hand for mixing a quick color or just to have as a backup though. We like using disposable Dixie cups (just make sure when you use any cups for resin, that they are clean resin cups).
This is also a good option if you are just getting into working with epoxy resin and you want to see if you enjoy it.
If you think that resin may be a long term passion of yours or perhaps you want to keep them on hand as a backup, we would suggest getting a dixie cup disposer so you can easily grab them.
This cup dispenser from Amazon is a really great price and will do the job perfectly.
We first started mixing our resin using disposable dixie resin cups. We would mix it in small batches to experiment with: resin with mica. Resin with acrylic. Resin with glitter. Resin with makeup! As soon as we knew this was a love affair for us, we knew that the disposable cups would not sustain our passion. We keep about 100 in the studio as a backup, and then we moved on to using what we listed in point number 2:
These are what we recommend for the artist who works with resin quite often. These silicone cups are perfect for mixing resin with your colorant, pouring and then leaving to cure in your resin mixing cups in a well ventilated area.
Here is the beauty behind these cups: once the resin is cured, you can peel the resin out and dispose of it, leaving your cups clean and ready for use next time!
There are some things you will want to remember if you are using these cups though. For instance, what size are the pours you are planning on doing? Keep this in mind for the size you will want to be mixing. Another one to consider, is how many colors do you plan on pouring in one sitting? You may want to grab a few sets of these cups because once you mix a color and pour it from your cup, you won't be taking the cured resin out for around 72 hours. You may need many cups.
Check out this set of silicone measuring cups on Amazon. In it, you get 1 8oz flexible silicone cup as well as 4 other smaller 100ml measuring cups and 2 silicone stir sticks. This is a great set.
Compare price with other resin silicone mixing cups on Amazon here
If you opt to purchase silicone measuring cups for mixing resin and don't have the silicone stir sticks, you can use a wood stir stick like popsicle sticks, and here is a trick: once you are finished your epoxy pour and you are going to leave your resin to cure in your silicone cup for disposal, leave the wood popsicle stick in the cup with the leftover resin.
Mix it around a bit, coat it in the mixture and leave sitting in there. When it is time to take your cured, leftover resin out, simply pull out gently with the popsicle stick and dispose of it. That was easy!
A lot of times, we have supplies around the house we can use (and re-use!) For example, yogurt containers. If you flip them over and look at the bottom, you may notice a little symbol: a triangle with three arrows, and it says "PP 05" underneath it. This means it is reusable. You may find that symbol on Jell-O cups, yogurt containers, baby food containers, fruit cups, etc.
The "PP" on the bottom of these cups stands for polypropylene. It means your container is made from a thermoplastic polymer. They are strong plastic cups with high resistance to heat. You can reuse cleaned containers with this symbol for mixing your resin in, and your leftover resin should peel out like it does with the silicone cups.
Many resin artists advise that baby wipes will work or using other chemicals (such as rubbing alcohol or vinegar) to clean resin out of measuring cups works, but we absolutely do not recommend using anything to wipe or clean your cups for re-use. Even if you are working with a non-toxic resin, you do not want to mix chemicals together, or risk getting it on your skin.
It's great to have some extra cups around during your resin work, even to catch any bit of excess resin from your pours, that you can immediately re-use in some silicone resin molds. You can add more to these molds with your remaining resin as well!
Here are some more helpful articles and resources for resin work:
The Resin Supply Store on Amazon
The Right Respirator Choice for Resin | READ Here
PROPER RESPIRATOR FOR RESIN | CHECK PRICE
We hope we answered your question for you, and you leave here well-informed and ready to create some gorgeous resin art. Here's some Pins to share on your resin boards.
Happy creating!
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