Moody Man 2022 – 2023

Joel Writes:

“The Moody Man pendant was testing my moods. Initially, we thought this was a straightforward pendant and could be completed in 4 weeks. Six months later, we finally did it. This is after 6 illustrations, 55 builds, 45 failures, and $1240 spent on research and development. The goal with Moody Man was to have a pendant that not only changes colors with temperatures but for the pendant itself to have a very slight glow. As I mentioned, six months later, we achieved both, and what an endeavor.

The biggest hurdle was making them one with the epoxy, leuco dyes, and the metal pendant itself! January, we thought it would be easy enough to do, but we were wrong. In the first build, after three days of the epoxy curing, we notice a slight separation from the pendant interior contours. We figured it cured too fast, and the next batch, we fixed with controlled temperatures. Again, after three days, it started to separate. We contacted the epoxy supplier and they told us that because of the dimensional details, the curing was pushing outward and not to the walls of the pendant. So back to the drawing board.

We thought it could be achieved by taping the pendant’s underside, pouring the epoxy, and tapping the top to ensure the epoxy would set right – nope! The tape caused a horrible finish, and it pushed the tape away. March, we decided to phosphate finish the interior sides of the pendants so there would be a rough finish for the epoxy to grab and set too. It worked, but the outside finish edges looked jagged and, basically, like crap. April, we tried another technique with the epoxy pours using UV light to cure it immediately. The result was a wavy finish, and it also looked like crap. May, I finally had enough and came close to shelving the pendant and moving on when I came across an article about curing epoxy in a vacuum environment. We made a small vacuum chamber, made five parts, placed them in the champer, and vacuumed all the air out. After 12 hours, we removed the pendants and noticed very slight air bubbles. We let it finish curing, and after a week, absolutely no separation. The epoxy finish looked smooth and even, except for a few air bubbles. Another attempt was made but with better controls on the vacuum pressures, but again, air bubbles formed.   More research was done, and it was determined we did not have the right equipment to control the vacuum pressures to properly cure the epoxy. I searched on the internet and found a manufacturer specializing in detailed epoxy curing. We contacted them, and they agreed to look at our problem. We sent 5 pendants, and a week later, they mailed back 5 perfectly formed pendants with no air bubbles, smooth surfaces, and no separation. We asked how, and they would not tell us. So we sent them 120 pendants, and two weeks later, they came back perfect… and the Moody Man Pendant was finished!

In the end, much was learned, and from it all, we achieved our goal and produced a pendant with a rich history.”