She may take a different approach to this design with her amazing design, I just scratched the surface with my instructions but it is a start for anyone wanting to make these fancy retainers, it will take many, many times to perfect these designs, but as you can see with Maggie’s work it is worth it!
Here was the question:
I have another question for you please about this acrylic design I saw in a website of another lab. You tell me if I am wrong but there is no way this design could be fabricated by layering acrylic of different colors right? It looks too complicated and small for it to be acrylic. could it be drawn by a sharpie or something and then clear acrylic over it? How would you fabricate this? I would really appreciate your help and input please
My Response:
Sad to say but yes that was created with acrylic. I have heard of people using acrylic paint and then putting clear acrylic over it. But in this case I believe it was done by grinding in the design with a small bur then filling in the trenches with acrylic. I can this a 2 -step acrylic design, meaning you have to have to cure the retainer 2 or more times.
for example lets take that seashell,
1. The background (Aqua?) color was done first, cured trimmed just to the pumice stage, but just before pumicing..
2. you take a small bur and grind out the shape of the sea shell, at least 1mm deep
3. sprinkle in the white acrylic (or premix the white polymer and monomer for a more consistent color) into the seashell shape
4. Cure in the pressure pot
5 Grind down the white till it is flush with the Aqua color revealing your seashell shape
6 Take your small bur again and grid the lines for the pink accents
7. fill in the with pink acrylic , dont worry about spilling over onto the white part you will grind that off
8. Cure in pressure pot
9. grind down the pink fish with the white.
10 pumice and polish as usual.
11. enjoy your art work!
a couple of tips for this is when you grinding in your designs:
1. go as deep as you can without going all the way through the retainer, the deeper you go the more bold the color will be
2. Premix your polymer colors before you put them in the ground out areas that will make the colors more consistent.
3. the more complex the design, try to do all the same colors at once. example: do the white fins and seashell grinding at the same time, so you can pour them up at the same time in white.
if you have already seen this yet I have done a video of this
“Acrylic Inlay” method to put the words “YOLO” in a retainer.
