How to Use UV Resin: A Complete Beginner's Guide

Start with a hard-type UV resin you trust. Abby uses Padico and Miniature Sweet brands and keeps a small kit of Padico picks nearby: a needle tool, chisel, angled tool, flat tool, and tiny scoop. The plastic ones bend over time, so toothpicks work fine if you don't want to buy a set yet. Add a pair of fine-tip tweezers (Tamiya is her pick) for placing decals and inclusions.

Bezels are the easiest way to start. Squeeze resin straight from the bottle into the metal frame and use a needle tool or toothpick to push it into the corners. Don't overfill, the surface tension will hold a slight dome. Drop in any decals, stickers, or glitter now, then move on to popping bubbles before you cure.

Open bezels have no metal floor, so the resin would just leak out. Stick a strip of clear packaging tape across the back, press firmly so there are no gaps along the bezel edge, and flip it tape-side down on your work surface. Now you can fill it like a closed bezel. After it cures, the tape peels right off and leaves a smooth, glossy back.

Tip a small puddle of resin onto a palette or work straight in the mold. Add a drop of liquid pigment (Padico clear colors are great for translucent pieces, Miniature Sweet for soft pastel opaques) and stir with a toothpick until the color is even. Pearl Ex powders and glitter work the same way. Start with a tiny amount, you can always add more, but you can't take it back out.

Silicone molds come in every shape you can think of, from tiny charms to bigger pendants. Squeeze resin slowly into the cavity until it sits just below the rim, then tap the mold gently on the table so trapped air rises to the top. Pass a lighter quickly across the surface to pop any bubbles. Don't hold the flame on the resin, just a quick sweep.

Slide the piece under your UV lamp and turn it on. A small 9-watt lamp is fine for tacking layers together, but for a real hard cure you want a 36-watt UV lamp. Cure for three to five minutes, flip the piece if it's in a mold, and run it again so both sides see the light. If you don't have a lamp yet, direct sunlight for about 30 minutes also works.

Once the timer's done, pop the piece out of the silicone mold or peel the packaging tape off the back of your bezel. Press the surface with your fingernail. If it still feels tacky or soft, your lamp isn't strong enough or the piece needs more time, so put it back under the light for another few minutes. A fully cured piece is hard, glossy, and ready to wear or glue onto a project.