I've tried this before and got the same result of that dull finish. I did a little trick tho after some experimenting, and it also helps with the expansion. When you drop the mercury in and pour to resin over it, wait just a few minutes for the resin to set up a little. then take a syringe and push an air bubble into where the mercury is. This will create a pocket for the mercury and it will keep it's luster, plus it has area for expansion. It works even better if you inject nitrogen instead of just air (I had to steal some out of my car tires lol). It's also cool when you can create a fairly big air pocket, the mercury rolls around in it and it's like a liquid ball bearing fishing lure.
Nitrogen, yes, but air, no. Air is what causes it to lose it's lustre. It maybe looked shinier for a short while, but eventually it'll just turn it into grey flaky crap if you keep moving it around.
nice video, thanks for some ideas :) ... one ideas is, to get there some voltage and lokking if the mecruy reacts diffrnet and form some lines or something and than fix that in resin...
Nice one. If you want... to make the mercury look suspended without being flat on one side, you can use little non-stick spheres. Cast them up to half their height, then pull them out and add the mercury.
I'm also concerned about the mercury leaching into the resin. You could also creat a cavity in the resin, pour mercury, cast a separate lid and join the two to have space for the mercury to slosh around inside
What might be neat is if you put mercury in a small glass bulb or test tube like container and then cast around it. This way it can still move around inside the container. Just my thoughts
Where did you get the mercury? Looks like you could make your own thermometers with this if you made an air pocket of a certain size..and then surrounded it with your own decorations.
My father studied metalogy at university, and so has had it for about 50 years. I'm not sure how easy it is to buy if you wanted to. Thanks for watching
I have a whole shelf in my closet with mercury bulbs and some mercury switches and a jar of broken ones. Pretty fun to mess with the intact switches, but I haven't worked up the courage to separate the broken glass from the mercury in the jar. Oh also PS, the next shelf down has a bunch of bottles of UV 3D printing resin as well as a bottle of ferric chloride and one of corrosive metal blueing solution. Fun little coincidence there
What you don't see when playing around with mercury like this is that there is also tiny drops the size of dust that you can see with microscope, and they linger putting out poisonous vapours.
You should store mercury under a layer of water to keep the fumes from escaping. The fumes can be nearly invisible but trust me they are there and you don't want to breathe them.
Elemental mercury in moderate quantities at room temperature is putting off as close to zero "fumes" as possible. Even though it can vaporise at room temp it does so at such an insanely low rate that it would take a gallon of mercury, sitting open, years to accumulate enough in a small sealed room to reach toxic amounts. You are exposed to more eating a tuna sandwich than you are working with mercury like this in small amounts via vaporization.
Mercury will also evaporate into the air, so now you're breathing it in. I appreciate the video (gave you a thumbs up and a comment), just be careful man. I wonder what heating it would do, now that the resin has cured.
Maybe you capture a prince Rupert drop exploding some how,I don't know how b it would be something.leave the tail out and explode it when it was almost set? I just googled it it's been done but I would of like to see it slowed to 150000fps,or more
Definetly do some testing with that! Heat / Pressure / Atmosphere everything just to make sure nothing happens :'D also if you sell those tell them to NOT take it on flights NEVER EVER! XD
It would be interesting to see the temperature change results. Especially since most resins are exothermic. Perhaps the mercury expanded slightly during the curing stage and wont be an issue if it gets warm later on.
Very interesting experiment! Shame it dulled the mercury during curing. I wonder with the mercury being liquid still, if you cooled the whole thing in a fridge, assuming the mercury would shrink more than the resin?!, then with enough agitation it would cause it to "reflow" changing the surface layer. Maybe it's worth a further experiment!
It's a shame that such a pretty and useful metal is so poisonous. The same can be said for lead, minus the pretty part. I have a whole bunch of mercury sealed away from old switches out of thermostats but I don't really know what to do with it. The broken ones are in a jar and the intact ones are relatively harmless. Very fun stuff to play with if you're safe about it.
From one small UA-cam channel to another, I really enjoyed this and you've gained a new subscriber 😊👍 I'm also just starting my journey into resin art amongst many other things. I look forward to seeing your previous content 😊
All materials expand when heated. Mercury is just used because it is a liquid at most temperatures that you want to measure, and you don't need to worry about it evaporating or mixing with things to spoil your measurements.
Suggestion if possible, encase the mercury in something spherical with a similar refractive index, though not needed, i would go with only filling it halfway or so and if possible draw a vacuum on it to assist with the expansion and avoiding bubbles of air escaping while the resin is hot, edit: i saw another comment around a cavity, perhaps using something like wax or something that will not interact with the resin that can be melted out later or a baloo ln with mold release that could be popped
Very interesting and neat! I always found mercury to be an intriguing metal. If it weren't toxic, I'd love to just play with it like gallium. Even though it dulled a little, I still find it cool! Honestly, I would have thought it would have flattened out more than that.
I love this, it's my first vid of yours about to watch more. I subbed and liked. Watching other's experiments gets me to start thnking of my own. wanted to leave a comment to help the algorithm.
50 years ago we used to put mercury on the table in chemistry class and push it around with our bare fingers we also rubbed it on pennies to turn them silver in color and no one died or got sick, just saying
I've tried this before and got the same result of that dull finish. I did a little trick tho after some experimenting, and it also helps with the expansion. When you drop the mercury in and pour to resin over it, wait just a few minutes for the resin to set up a little. then take a syringe and push an air bubble into where the mercury is. This will create a pocket for the mercury and it will keep it's luster, plus it has area for expansion. It works even better if you inject nitrogen instead of just air (I had to steal some out of my car tires lol). It's also cool when you can create a fairly big air pocket, the mercury rolls around in it and it's like a liquid ball bearing fishing lure.
I wonder how many other people have cast mercury in resin, we're probably part of a small group! You've got some great ideas. Thanks for watching
Nitrogen, yes, but air, no.
Air is what causes it to lose it's lustre.
It maybe looked shinier for a short while, but eventually it'll just turn it into grey flaky crap if you keep moving it around.
@@EddieTheHdoubtful. Probably the resin itself.
Super cool; would be interesting to see an update after you expose it to some heat.
def, please
I'll see what I can do, thanks for watching
We’re all looking forward to the follow up after some temperature changes etc!
I may do another mercury video, and do an update in that. Thanks for watching!
nice video, thanks for some ideas :) ... one ideas is, to get there some voltage and lokking if the mecruy reacts diffrnet and form some lines or something and than fix that in resin...
Really neat idea. I was surprised how it turned out! Keep going!
Nice one. If you want... to make the mercury look suspended without being flat on one side, you can use little non-stick spheres. Cast them up to half their height, then pull them out and add the mercury.
Good idea! Thanks for watching
I'm also concerned about the mercury leaching into the resin. You could also creat a cavity in the resin, pour mercury, cast a separate lid and join the two to have space for the mercury to slosh around inside
That's a good idea, but probably harder to do than you might think. I may try to figure out a way of doing it though. Thanks for watching.
Beautiful job.
Interesting result. Wouldn't make sense try that with gallium? As is non toxic and melts only at 30°C
What a cool experiment!❤
Thank you, I enjoyed it.
What might be neat is if you put mercury in a small glass bulb or test tube like container and then cast around it. This way it can still move around inside the container. Just my thoughts
Good idea! Thanks for watching
I'm going to assume that your resin heated up as it cured. The mercury may have already been at an expanded position when it cured.
Yes I agreed. I'll still test it though. Thanks for watching
To some extent, you already put the mercury in a hot place. Resin gets hot while curing
That is very true. Thanks for watching.
Where did you get the mercury?
Looks like you could make your own thermometers with this if you made an air pocket of a certain size..and then surrounded it with your own decorations.
My father studied metalogy at university, and so has had it for about 50 years. I'm not sure how easy it is to buy if you wanted to. Thanks for watching
Neat.
Thanks!
From the top side the smaller drops kind of look like an atomic structure model lol
It’s crazy that a gallon of mercury would weigh like 80lbs
A gallon of mercury would weigh 113 lbs
It is very heavy! An being liquid is a very unusual material to play with. Thanks for watching
@@barnabyhowesculpture yeah, I actually have a half gallon of it, haven’t done anything with it though
👍👍🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thanks!
So... a highly poisonous metal encased in non-biodegradable plastic. Almost makes me want to become an Environmentalist...
Who cares
I have a whole shelf in my closet with mercury bulbs and some mercury switches and a jar of broken ones. Pretty fun to mess with the intact switches, but I haven't worked up the courage to separate the broken glass from the mercury in the jar.
Oh also PS, the next shelf down has a bunch of bottles of UV 3D printing resin as well as a bottle of ferric chloride and one of corrosive metal blueing solution. Fun little coincidence there
What you don't see when playing around with mercury like this is that there is also tiny drops the size of dust that you can see with microscope, and they linger putting out poisonous vapours.
You should store mercury under a layer of water to keep the fumes from escaping. The fumes can be nearly invisible but trust me they are there and you don't want to breathe them.
Thanks for the advise. I did my research before hand and was careful.
Elemental mercury in moderate quantities at room temperature is putting off as close to zero "fumes" as possible. Even though it can vaporise at room temp it does so at such an insanely low rate that it would take a gallon of mercury, sitting open, years to accumulate enough in a small sealed room to reach toxic amounts. You are exposed to more eating a tuna sandwich than you are working with mercury like this in small amounts via vaporization.
@@rdizzy1 I'm not taking any chances, and I choose to store my chemicals properly. You do you.
Mercury will also evaporate into the air, so now you're breathing it in. I appreciate the video (gave you a thumbs up and a comment), just be careful man. I wonder what heating it would do, now that the resin has cured.
Thanks for the advice, I will be. Thanks for watching
What a fun video. I love your results.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Maybe you capture a prince Rupert drop exploding some how,I don't know how b it would be something.leave the tail out and explode it when it was almost set? I just googled it it's been done but I would of like to see it slowed to 150000fps,or more
Definetly do some testing with that! Heat / Pressure / Atmosphere everything just to make sure nothing happens :'D also if you sell those tell them to NOT take it on flights NEVER EVER! XD
It would be interesting to see the temperature change results. Especially since most resins are exothermic. Perhaps the mercury expanded slightly during the curing stage and wont be an issue if it gets warm later on.
It would be interesting to setup an hourglass resin and place some mercury in one of the chambers.
I’d be interested to see what gallium looks like compared.
Mercury poisoning aside, this should be a craft done in art class instead of an ash tray.
Yeah i wanted to see the mercury moving around an air pocket. Cool tho
Very interesting experiment! Shame it dulled the mercury during curing. I wonder with the mercury being liquid still, if you cooled the whole thing in a fridge, assuming the mercury would shrink more than the resin?!, then with enough agitation it would cause it to "reflow" changing the surface layer. Maybe it's worth a further experiment!
It's possible of course that the surface layer of the mercury has bonded in some way to the resin so it's now stuck in place
Wandering if you spin cast the epoxy layer to form a large parabolic mirrors w mercury between 2 layers then glue seal the edges? Giant telescope 😮😮😊😊
I've done something similar in trapping water in resin, and could use the same principle with mercury. I may do a video on it. Thanks for watching
The resin curing is exothermic, so the mercury probably expanded during curing.
Yes, I think you're probably right. Thanks for watching.
Alright who's going to tell him...
That was a great
It's a shame that such a pretty and useful metal is so poisonous. The same can be said for lead, minus the pretty part. I have a whole bunch of mercury sealed away from old switches out of thermostats but I don't really know what to do with it. The broken ones are in a jar and the intact ones are relatively harmless. Very fun stuff to play with if you're safe about it.
One of the Action Lab videos shows an alloy of gallium called galistan. It is a shiny liquid at room temperature and less toxic.
@@excadrilldrillbur Yeah gallium is pretty cool. probably my favorite metal element. Not nearly as abundant as lead or mercury, unfortunately.
Interesting
From one small UA-cam channel to another, I really enjoyed this and you've gained a new subscriber 😊👍
I'm also just starting my journey into resin art amongst many other things. I look forward to seeing your previous content 😊
All materials expand when heated. Mercury is just used because it is a liquid at most temperatures that you want to measure, and you don't need to worry about it evaporating or mixing with things to spoil your measurements.
Yes, you're right, and thanks for watching
Gallium next?
Good call!
Amazing!
Thanks!
Suggestion if possible, encase the mercury in something spherical with a similar refractive index, though not needed, i would go with only filling it halfway or so and if possible draw a vacuum on it to assist with the expansion and avoiding bubbles of air escaping while the resin is hot, edit: i saw another comment around a cavity, perhaps using something like wax or something that will not interact with the resin that can be melted out later or a baloo ln with mold release that could be popped
Very interesting and neat! I always found mercury to be an intriguing metal. If it weren't toxic, I'd love to just play with it like gallium. Even though it dulled a little, I still find it cool! Honestly, I would have thought it would have flattened out more than that.
Yes, it is a very cool material. Thanks for watching
I love this, it's my first vid of yours about to watch more. I subbed and liked. Watching other's experiments gets me to start thnking of my own. wanted to leave a comment to help the algorithm.
Thank you for watching, and the sub, much appreciated!
What a good question 👍😎
I enjoyed thank you. The back side has a nice effect, not entirely flat.
Thank you, and thanks for watching.
Such an awesome experiment. I love your videos!
Thank you! Cheers!
Great experiment. Subscribed ✌️
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it.
Pretty cool! I'd love to see updates
Thanks, I'll have to see what I can. Thanks for watching
Really cool experiment 😊😊😊
Thank you! Cheers!
Don't be burdened by what has been
Really cool
Thanks you!
50 years ago we used to put mercury on the table in chemistry class and push it around with our bare fingers we also rubbed it on pennies to turn them silver in color and no one died or got sick, just saying
You got 2.5k subs that is not at all a small channel
I guess it's relative, but I'd call it small. Thank you for watching.