Decorating plastic, glass and ceramics.

Mica instead of glitter to decorate glass and ceramics

Mica flakes and mica powder are successfully used as replacements for glitter to decorate all materials and articles, especially when particles have to penetrate into the structure of the material (rather than being glued on the surface).

Mica is irreplaceable for decorating glass, ceramics, and plastic products. Whenever contact with a high temperature or food products is needed, is recommended to use mica flakes or grounded mica instead of polyester glitter.

Typical glitter is in the form of finely chopped pieces of polyester film with a thickness about 10 - 40 microns. Glitter particles have regular shapes (eg. hexagons, stars, diamonds) with a width of 0.1 - 1.0 mm. The advantage of glitter is possible to obtain virtually any color and certain forms particles of the film.

Unfortunately, the conventional glitter can not be used at high temperatures, which occur during the production of plastic, glass, porcelain and ceramic. In the process of molding plastic, glass and ceramics, plastic grains of classical glitter will be destroyed. "Cold" glitter gluing to plastic, glass and ceramics causes unstable decorating, which can not be used in contact with food (glitter particles can get into the food).

Permanent decorating plastic, glass and ceramics is provided only by merging shining, colored particles into the structure of plastic, glass or ceramics. In such situations, "mica glitter" is irreplaceable. Depending on the raw material used, particles of mica may be processed at a high temperature of 600 °C (muscovite) to over 1 100 °C (synthetic mica). The color palette of "mica glitter" is quite broad and includes color from white through pearl, green, red, blue and gold to brown and black in different shades (see. below).

The size of the flakes.

Depending on the effect you want to achieve, you can use the large and very large flakes for example 5-10 mm and as much as 7 - 15 mm. With such granulation you can see a clear pattern of flake. Especially often mica is used in various shades of gold (eg. gold royal) or silver. Successfully simulates eg. flakes of gold / silver embedded in the structure of the material (eg. in the black lacquer).

Most often, in order to achieve the "glitter" effect, small mica flakes of 0.2 - 0.5 mm or 0.5 - 1.0 mm are used. This granularity allows you to get shiny plane without emphasizing the structure of the mica's flakes.

If you want to see individual particles (flakes) of mica, it can be used the average flakes granulation (1.0 - 3.0 mm). It is especially popular for synthetic mica, allowing for the use of a temperature of 1 100 °C.

Available mica colors

Color palette of mica used (instead of polyester glitter) for decorating glassware and ceramics, includes the following colors:

Mica's color: white brown light brown black dark violet light violet dark red light red dark blue pearl orange silver dark green light green gold light gold king's gold rusty gold dark yellow light yellow