Pru

The other cheap material worth knowing is agar, which sets a firm clear gel from hot water and is genuinely edible, non-toxic and very inexpensive.

It sets like a firm jelly and, unlike gelatine, it does not melt back at warm room temperature — which matters under stage lights. Colour it with food colouring, or make it opaque with a little titanium dioxide or even milk powder.

The drawback is that it is water-based, so it will eventually dry out and shrink unless sealed. For a run of a few weeks that is fine; for a permanent display it is not.

A third option nobody expects: plaster or joint compound, thinned to a pourable consistency and tinted. Cheap, opaque, sets hard, heavy. Good where weight does not matter and excellent for anything meant to look like a thick paste.

The general rule for colouring epoxy: use a colourant that is compatible with the system, and keep the total addition small.

The options that work:

• Purpose-made epoxy pigments and dyes, sold for exactly this. Most reliable and the least thinking required.
• Dry pigment powders, including titanium dioxide, mica and oxide pigments. Cheap and effective.
• Oil-based or solvent-based tints, in small quantities.

What does not work reliably: anything water-based, and anything added in large volume. Even a compatible colourant will weaken the cure if you add enough of it — the usual guidance is to keep additions to a small single-digit percentage of the total mass.

And mix the resin and hardener thoroughly first, then add pigment. Adding pigment to one component before combining makes it much harder to judge whether the two parts are properly mixed, and under-mixed epoxy is the other common way to get a batch that stays soft.

That is a survival or fishing tool card — a flat stamped sheet where each tool is held in place by small tabs and snapped out when needed.

The usual contents, and what they are:

• Fish hooks in a couple of sizes, sometimes barbed.
• A lure or spinner blade, often shiny and shaped to flash in water.
• Arrow or spear points, meant to be lashed to a shaft.
• A small saw edge along one side of the card.
• An awl or reamer for making holes.
• A snare or wire eyelet, and often a sewing needle with an eye.
• A small blade or scraper, and sometimes an edge for striking a ferrocerium rod.

The key thing to understand about the format: the tools do not go back. Once snapped out they stay out, and there is no way to reattach them. It is a one-way object designed to be carried flat in a wallet and used once in an emergency.

The low-technology option, which is what I eventually settled on after buying two devices: print on ordinary paper, cut, and use a repositionable glue roller.

Those applicators lay down a stripe of removable adhesive and cost very little. You print a page of eight or ten notes, cut them apart with a guillotine, and roll adhesive along one edge as you use them.

It is more steps and it uses a printer you already own with paper you already have. Whether that beats a dedicated device depends entirely on whether you would rather do a small task now and then or buy a machine.