The metal 'medallions' are created by using the sand casting process. It is essentially 'pot metal'. Each medallion is made for one year only by this foundry, and I have collected them for many years. The designs are very understated. The addition of color accentuates the designs. Sometimes I will use a single color, sometimes multiple colors. Some of the medallions have 'voids' or open spaces. I may leave them open. I may fill them with an inlay. For all of the medallions, I use the Clear Kit and Metallic Dyes primarily. The other Dyes are nice as well, but the Metallic Dyes are best for these.
I use a lot of the Dyes. They should always be used with the Clear resin. Adding to the colored resins is a waste of time. The Dyes are the most difficult InLace product to work with and I keep detailed notes of what does and does not work. The premixed Kits, or the Clear Kit with Granules, Nuggets, and other non-Dye additives are easier to use and also to learn with. The Dyes offer a lot of customizing opportunities that I can't stay away from. The first efforts were a disastrous mess, like everything new that I try.
The Metallic Dyes are tops. The Pearl Dyes are very useful. The White Pearl and Gold Pearl work great by themselves. The other Pearl Dyes are pretty lousy by themselves because you can't get good results without using so much Dye that the inlay will never harden. However, the Blue, Green, and Red Pearls are very useful when combined with the Metallic Dyes. The Pearl is used for the 'base effect', and the Metallic adds pigment strength (color - without losing the pearl effect). The Solid - Opaque Dyes are very strong and should be added minimally. That said, just a tiny bit added to a custom mix can create other wise impossible color combinations.
The number of drops of Hardener is critical. Too much or too little, and the inlay will not harden. It will sometimes mostly cure, but not quite be fully hardened; though that is sometimes okay because I can still carefully polish the inlay (careful not to build up heat), and then coat with a hard, 'top coat' of polyurethane, spar varnish, or a similar product. The deeper the inlay, the more forgiving the Dye inlay and it should harden very nicely, though extra time should be allowed for curing. It gets really tricky to use the Dye in a shallow groove successfully. Deeper is definitely better. It also makes undercutting easier, a step that I always follow when possible. The inlay will lock into place forever. The medallions have a very minimal depth to work with (bad), and undercutting is not possible (bad) - but I have done a lot of experimenting and learned how to make it work.
Thicken-It is an essential product, but useless for adding to the Clear resin and Metallic Dye mixture with the medallions. I almost always prefer to use the Thicken-It with the Clear resin when possible because it is so thin (runny). For the medallions, I just live with the thin mixture and deal. I have found that the curing time with mixtures that use InLace Dyes is much longer than with other mixtures. Also, the curing time on a thin pour can be days, or even weeks. I just leave them alone. If the recipe is right, the inlay will become hard as a rock. Allowing the extra time is essential, especially if working with too shallow a pour. If impatient, get busy with something else. Hide the project for awhile and come back and see if the recipe was correct. If so, it will be as hard as the material into which it was poured. As a rule, deeper grooves and channels are a lot easier to work with. I use in InLace with wood, metal, stone, and pottery.
The jewelry boxes are easy. I make a nice pour of about 1/4" in the bottom of the inside. I also rout a design as deep as reasonable in the top and make another inlay. Then I sand down the inlay to about 8000 grit, hit it good with the Buffing and Polishing Compounds, and finish by one of several options. Something as simple as a colored wax can work very well and is a favorite. I just tint the wood, then lightly buff the wax. With a dark wood, a sealer or wax-and-buff is the most that is needed. Light woods often benefit from a bit of 'tinting' to ease contrast. If using a stain, I will almost always first protect the inlay with a couple coats of spar urethane, or other 'protective clear coat'. Be sure that the InLace is fully cured first.
For the inlay in the bottom of the jewelry boxes, make a nice gentle pour (carefully avoiding the addition of air bubbles), and it will set up so beautifully that you couldn't polish it any smoother or slicker if you tried. One has to take care to minimize the natural creation of an excessive meniscus with this type of pour. That is, the liquid inlay will want to 'climb the sides' and this should be avoided. Pouring slowly will prevent any real problems. Just pouring the mixture in quickly and haphazardly will result in a lesson learned and a problem that is not really fixable. It will look messy. One can see examples of a meniscus in a glass of water, either partially full or overly full. A meniscus can be concave or convex depending upon the situation. Bad either way if excessive. Practice and experience solve all problems.
Sorry that I don't have any really good pictures to show, but I also use a lot of Clear InLace without any additives. I use it as a Clear solid surface material over woodburnings, pictures, and the like. It is far superior to any other product that I have tried because it comes so close to being a 'pure clear'. It does not go 'cloudy' like so many epoxies, CA products, and second rate resins. And a lot of those products are much more expensive, much less reliable, or both. If using the Clear resin only, do not add any Thicken-It. The product, while highly useful, will cloud Clear resin that has no additives to provide color and visual texture. My Clear resin only pictures aren't very good because of the glare bounce-back. I hope that you enjoy some of my better pictures and find the tips helpful.
Finishing Notes: A lot of InLace users start sanding with extremely coarse grits. This is not necessary, adding scratches that aren't there, and then working them out again. Harrumph! I often start with 500 grit or even 1200 grit. The better one becomes with practice and experience, the easier the finishing process. I used to spend more time finishing than anything else and the results were okay. Now, I spend less time finishing than any other step, and my surfaces are like glass.
Grumpy