So do they glow without the flashlight to charge them? Is there an alternative casting material that reflects room light into the dot and then glow on its own?
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Making my own luminescent side dots.
- Thread starter llmk
- Start date
This is Luthier's Corner, where innovations are many. Value loss discussions are irrelevant.
No, they are glow in the dark. Like all glow in the dark, they must be charged with light first.
Maybe Google "luminlay"?
Illuminated dots are either GITD (what we have here) or battery-LED (possibly battery not-LED, but that's crazy poor choice in the era of LEDs for efficient lighting, until something better comes along.) GITD is a lot less prone to failure as it's a lot less complex and has no wiring to fail, batteries to die, etc. And yes, GITD has to be charged with light in some way. Different stuff has different levels of pickiness about what will charge it, and how long it lasts.
Yes, somewhat, but it's a weaker charge. If you leave it parked in a room with good normal lighting on the dots, they will charge up partway. Turn out the lights and they will glow. You can definitely see them in the dark. But charging them with a UV penlight will take them to their full capacity, and they will glow brighter.
Remember that the powder is primarily storing light energy from the UV spectrum, then slowly releasing it partly in the visual range. It's the UV frequency range that really charges. Indoors, most of your windows probably have some UV coating. Electric lamps emit some UV, but not piles of it.
Set the bass outdoors in the direct sunlight, and those suckers will charge right up in a few minutes. But don't leave the bass out there very long!
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Totally agree with the UV light vs normal LED light to charge. There’s one venue we play where they kick on black lights throughout the night and my Luminlays glow bright all night long. I just ordered a small 395uv light to try on my Friday night gig.
What powder is best to mix into the epoxy for this?
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I don't know what's "best". We didn't do a whole lot of R & D, testing different brands. Mike got the powder at Michael's Art Supply, a big US chain store. It was fairly cheap and worked fine, so we kept using it. I don't remember the specific brand.
But it was like this:
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Instead of the casting process, why not just insert the liquid directly into a drilled out space on the side of the neck or front of the neck? Thus using the actual instrument as the mold?
Tried that, didn't like it. The dots look fuzzy and mis-shapen. I don't like my dots to be fuzzy and mis-shapen, especially when they glow in the dark!
Okay thanks, exact stuff I already have but didn’t think it glowed that bright. I’ll test with the black light to see if that’s more effective.
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So, I've reached the limits of the UV resin, the glow powder was clearly interfering with the curing process the more I added so I had to change to a 2 parts epoxy and adapt my process.
Today was the first test with the new epoxy:
Now it's just a matter of waiting 24 hours to see the result. At this point I'm using the sacrificial glow powder I have that's why it's dark blue instead of whitish green.
Today was the first test with the new epoxy:
Now it's just a matter of waiting 24 hours to see the result. At this point I'm using the sacrificial glow powder I have that's why it's dark blue instead of whitish green.
Yeah, that looks good. That's like the ones I used to make for Mike. I remember sometimes deliberately leaving that little trail of epoxy between the dots, not wiping it up. I'd pull the whole row from the mold as one piece, and give them to him as a stick of dots. As he was gluing them in the necks, he'd snap one off the stick and drop it in the hole.
There will also be a saturation point of powder vs epoxy, where the epoxy won't cure properly. But it may be higher than the other poly resin that you were using.
By the way, the epoxy isn't very sensitive to temperature and moisture. So, you can do a quick mix & pour and then place it all on the back window sill, to keep the fumes away from your birds. Even down to near freezing, most epoxies will still cure, although it may take twice as long.
Yeah, I like the little trail, it makes demolding them much easier. The next few days will all be about learning to work with this epoxy and finding the saturation point, for sure.
I think the epoxy is ok, it is advertised as food-safe (once cured, of course) BPA and VOC-free. It has no smell whatsoever (at least in the small quantities I am mixing) but just to make sure I work with an opened window and a fan running and then I put the molds and the mixing materials in a closed box for curing. I opened the box about 3 hours after mixing and still couldn't smell anything.
The result from yesterday's test batch, it's promising but I need to work on my injection method as many of the dots have a small air bubble down at the base. It's still a work in progress.
Looking good. Notice also how the powder has settled down into the bottom of the dot. I assume that the epoxy is slower curing than the resin you used at first. But this can work to your advantage. Specify the depth of the hole to be drilled to be maybe 2/3 of the length of the dot. That way the installed dot will have more concentration of powder in it, and be brighter.
If you end up selling kits of these dots, you could include the right size drill bit in the kit. And fit the drill bit with a little stop sleeve, to make it easy for the customer to make the hole the right diameter and depth.
Also, as you work toward making this into an appealing product, you could make those mushroom heads neater looking. Put a little washer or two down over each of the pins on your Master. Then make up a new mold. That will create a small round counterbore at the top of each hole. When you fill them with the epoxy mix, fill up to nearly the top of the counterbore. That will make the mushroom heads uniform and round. More professional looking.
I was half expecting the powder to settle down at the bottom but it didn't bother me for the exact reason you've stated. The first thing I did was to cut a couple of dots to see if they were cured at the bottom and they were so I guess it's all good. I'm a bit more bothered by the small air bubbles, I need to change something to avoid them. I tried changing the angle of the syringe on the new batch I made today to see if that changed anything.
I'm not sure about the drill bit, that would drive the price up but would make the product more premium for sure, I need to think about it. The washer idea sounds pretty good, I was going to just remove the mushroom heads but that is more labor intensive though it has the advantage of forcing me to inspect every rod separately to check for defects.
I'm quite sure I'm going to want to sell these once I'm satisfied with the result, I was thinking today that I have enough material for at least several hundreed rods, I have the molds done, it would just be a waste not to. You are right, I should start thinking about the logistics too. At this point, I think you know how much I appreciate your help, Bruce, it helps me see things clearer.
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Finding out that perfect ratio is what I am most focused on right now. For the UV resin, with my setup and materials, it is somewhere between 25% and 30%. At 25% the rods seem perfectly cured, at 30% they are getting noticeably softer, past 30% the center of the rod remains gelatinous.
For the 2 part epoxy, I am using right now, it is yet to be determined. Yesterday's batch was at 33% and it is hardened but I still need to wait another couple of days for it to be fully cured (as specified by the manufacturer). All this is keeping in mind that I use the sacrificial glow powder that is of unspecified granulometry and is opaque. After I find a ratio, I will still have to try it with the good powder and see if it translates.
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