Sticky is as sticky does

A funny thing happened to me on the way from the laundry. I had recently gotten some pressure sensitive adhesive on my fingers, but stopped at the dryer to switch some clothes before going up stairs to wash my hands. I pulled a pile of lint off the lint catching device and then went the the trash can to throw it away, NOT! Everything I touched transferred a little bit of the sticky stuff and some of the lint just to let me know it was there. Back to the old business, adhesives. I got silicon caulk to stick to silicon rubber, but the silicon caulk did not stick to vinyl adhesive paper or pvc coated magnetic material, so it really is just like sticking something to itself. I didn't get anything significant out of the E6000 glue to adhere to the silicon either, but I did get some fiber paper, aka rice paper, to partially bond by absorption to the setting silicon. The only problem is that the paper itself split apart once I attached sticky paper to the other side of the material. I haven't given up because there is a solution in here, somewhere, but I was forced to move on for sake of time. A medium quality bond is the best I can currently get with silicon and it needs to be done while the material is setting up, preferably in the first hour or two after pouring the rubber. My accidental success with the silicon experiments is when they pull apart my molds and pieces of the mold itself are lodged into the silicon. This creates a multi-color effect in the final piece, but I haven't bothered to make this consistent, again for lack of time. I have kept a couple of samples and they add a new dimension to the silicon as the final piece results, but it will take more work to finalize this and I am sure that I've seen stuff like this on the market already with all of the embedded silicon rubber covers that are made as decorative protectors for iphones. My latest set of test have been with making thinner and thinner epoxy pieces with adhesive backings. The final concept may be as simple as epoxy stickers, but my way of getting to that end is 'round about, as usual. I placed a bunch of epoxy into molds and with the left over epoxy I pre-coated a bunch of different materials, which are clear milar film, vinyl sticker paper, heat transfer paper for t-shirts, heat sensitive glue paper for patches, rice paper and regular sticker paper and some rice paper adhered to double sided sticker paper. Since Epoxy will bond to epoxy I figured that if I can adhere the epoxy to these materials then they would be the perfect medium for setting into the epoxy itself either coated or uncoated. The milar transparency and vinyl beaded up with the liquid epoxy and proved to be uneven after it set. I didn't test the bond, but if sections of the material are not set then it is like having oil floating on water and won't work in all areas. Plus if I applied this material upside down I would never be able to tell if it adhered to the material or not. The benefit of the rice paper and other porous materials is that the epoxy absorbs into the capillaries of the material itself and almost sucks the material into the liquid, or vice-versa. So paper based materials are good and the epoxy spreads more evenly when there are spaces to fill. The most interesting materials are the heat sensitive glues. I got encouraging results from the heat transfer paper and suggestive results from the patch transfer paper. I may need to work on my timing, but I liked the finish on the patch transfer material the best and the epoxy spread evenly and separated smoothly from the substrate. I wasn't sure about the temperature and the heat to apply, nor the presure, but I got medium results. Mostly I liked how evenly the material appeared to separate from the substrate and I think the other details like heat, time and pressure can be worked out. This means that I could make epoxy photo fresco patches, that once adhered to jackets, bags or sport shirts could last longer than the garments themselves.