jskeen
Member
Finally got time to cast up some natural edge black cherry scraps I had laying around. Here's the batch ready for the second casting, with my hi-tech nonreuseable mold. I found that the exterior coating on the cardboard does a pretty good job of letting the PR shrink as it cures, and then it's easy to just run the block through the bandsaw paper and all, then peel off the scrap. It is also pretty easy to just use a dot of ca to hold the wood pieces to the mold so I didn't have to worry about them floating. I didn't bother to clean all the paper off, just turned the blank paper and all.
Mix was originally flat green pigment and tangerine pearl powder. Murphey was here in spades that day, and my phone rang at just exactly the wrong time, so the tangerine had passed gel and gotten to glop before I could get it onto the wood. So, I used the green to fill in around the edges and cracks as best as possible and got it under pressure. Instead of swirls, I got a kinda mutant two tone type thing. Cut it apart and recast with some lighter green with pearl mixed in, to fill the voids.
I managed to kill the first two blanks I tried to turn and drill, either due to poor adhesion of resin to wood, or general carelessness. but got the third one onto a chrome euro FP kit, and have a couple more to play with.
Lessons learned;
1 the smell does get to you after a while. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" works well with it
2 Different pigments will effect gel time!
3 Too much of a flat color pigment looks kind of bland next to wood and other resin with lots of features. Use less pigment to give depth and a little white pearl for some sparkle.
Mix was originally flat green pigment and tangerine pearl powder. Murphey was here in spades that day, and my phone rang at just exactly the wrong time, so the tangerine had passed gel and gotten to glop before I could get it onto the wood. So, I used the green to fill in around the edges and cracks as best as possible and got it under pressure. Instead of swirls, I got a kinda mutant two tone type thing. Cut it apart and recast with some lighter green with pearl mixed in, to fill the voids.
I managed to kill the first two blanks I tried to turn and drill, either due to poor adhesion of resin to wood, or general carelessness. but got the third one onto a chrome euro FP kit, and have a couple more to play with.
Lessons learned;
1 the smell does get to you after a while. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" works well with it
2 Different pigments will effect gel time!
3 Too much of a flat color pigment looks kind of bland next to wood and other resin with lots of features. Use less pigment to give depth and a little white pearl for some sparkle.
