How to Make Jewelry Using a Broken Sonicare

I've had this bottle of Lisa Pavelka's Magic-Glos UV resin and wanted to try it as a coating over my fabric covered cabochons that I use in the new frame flaring tool. However, living in Seattle, inevitably it would be raining outside on the day I wanted to use it, and therefore I could not set it outdoors to cure (ironically, as I write this, it is a beautiful, sunny day).

Our Sonicare broke a few weeks ago and was sitting on the counter waiting for us to figure out how to dispose of it when I realized that it has a UV light in it. The Sonicare has a 10 minute UV brush cleaning cycle, coincidentally, the same amount of time it takes to cure the resin. My "create recklessly mode" clicked on and off I went to see...can I cure UV resin with a Sonicare?

Well you can indeed! I simply removed the molded plastic tray from the door, lined it with foil and laid it flat on the table. Although it was awkward to close as I was using the whole body of the unit as the door since I wanted the door itself to lay flat (allowing the resin to stay level), in 10 minutes I had cured resin.

A UV lamp made for such resins is not too expensive, generally under $30, but what's the fun in that!

I can't imagine a scenario that this would have any safety precautions, but it certainly is not used as intended by the manufacturer, so try it at your own risk. : )