Thanks!
So I started applying a second coat of resin to the outside this evening....and wish I hadn't. When you apply the first coat of resin, it gets absorbed into the paper and provided you don't go overboard with it there is no pooling or collecting up in detail areas. The paper hardens enough for then doing the "real" hardening from the inside. However, I've read a few recommendations here to put two coats of resin on the outside, but when adding a second coat there's no place for the resin to soak into and it just sits on the surface of the hardened paper. That may be fine for a low-detail build, but I had the joy of spending an hour and a half "massaging" gelled resin out of all the nooks and crannies of my parts instead of how I had intended to spend the evening (working on a helmet model detail). So despite what you might hear elsewhere, I'm going to say right here if you're hardening your parts with resin and got a fair amount of detail on your parts, don't put a second coat of resin on the outside - do all subsequent hardening on the inside after the initial application. I will likely finish adding the second coat on the outside of the parts I've already started just so they all have the same consistency all over, but starting with the helmet I'm not putting more than one application of resin on the outside.
As for Smooth-On resin dye - the green tint came out of the bottle green alright, but it must have chemically-reacted with the resin because its color changed to an aqua-blue on the parts. Of course the kid says "that's the wrong color", but I reminded him there's a lot of sanding coming up soon and the color will be painted, not dyed resin. New pictures will be posted probably on the weekend.
