Bubbles in cast blank

[Live2Dive]

Hey everyone. I have an issue. I have a blank I bought from a vendor on the forums here. It is the first one from this maker, and after turning it down close to my bushings, I noticed an air bubble in the casting. It looks like it was a "left over" from where the two colors were swirled together. I figured I would sand it down a bit and hopefully get it to go away. After doing so, I actually revealed another bubble. Again, I sanded down some more, only to reveal a bunch more. I went ahead and took it through 12,000 MM to see if the would be noticeable and sure enough, it has a bunch of white spots all over the blank. Is the blank toast, or can those 'dots' be filled? I'd hate to toss it, as it was a more expensive blank, but I cannot justify selling the pen. Thoughts?

 

[Linarestribe]

You could clean out the holes and fill them with CA.

Jorge

 

[thewishman]

You can fill the holes with CA and then re-sand and polish. If that is not possible, contact the vendor, privately, and ask for advice or for a replacement.

 

[Fibonacci]

Wipe it down with blo and you can fill those with CA.

 

[bitshird]

Wipe it down with blo and you can fill those with CA.

DO NOT wipe resin down with BLO, The CA will never dry, just use either DNA or Accelerator and clean out the pin ho;es, THEN fill them wit your choice of CA, Mine would be Medium and use a straight pin to make sure it's all the way in then a squirt of accelerator,.
The BLO trick MIGHT???? work on wood but not on acrylic.

 

[Live2Dive]

Yeah, the BLO thing is NOT the right path. After the BLO failure, I decided to sand it down a bit more, 1) to get rid of the last bit's of BLO, and 2) to "hopefully" get rid of those darn dots. MORE dots shown up, and as patience has never been my strong suit, I decided to save the "clicker" tube and turned off the blank. There's 2 hours and $8.95 I'll never get back again.

Thanks anyway for the ideas. Now, I'm off to see what next waste of time in the shop I can get myself into!

 

[tjseagrove]

Yeah, the BLO thing is NOT the right path. After the BLO failure, I decided to sand it down a bit more, 1) to get rid of the last bit's of BLO, and 2) to "hopefully" get rid of those darn dots. MORE dots shown up, and as patience has never been my strong suit, I decided to save the "clicker" tube and turned off the blank. There's 2 hours and $8.95 I'll never get back again.

Thanks anyway for the ideas. Now, I'm off to see what next waste of time in the shop I can get myself into!

Contact the vendor privately and I am sure they will help you out. They want to sell you more blanks so want to see you satisfied. The quality of a vendor is not in what they do right, but how they resolve things that don't go right. I think you will have a new friend you trust. The vendors here are the best and everyone I have gotten things from have been great...and they know who they are.

Tom

 

[kenspens]

i agree with tom and the rest of the crew use ca to fill the holes but clean the holes real good i use dna and use compressed air to blow out the holes has worked well for me
and definatly contact your vendor he wants you to be happy!! as a person who sells blanks myself i also want everyone of my customers as happy as possible!! there will eventually be issues with some blanks but how the vendor handles it is everything IMHO
just my 2 cents
sincerely
KEN BROWN
KENSPENS

 

[76winger]

Yeah, the BLO thing is NOT the right path. After the BLO failure, I decided to sand it down a bit more, 1) to get rid of the last bit's of BLO, and 2) to "hopefully" get rid of those darn dots. MORE dots shown up, and as patience has never been my strong suit, I decided to save the "clicker" tube and turned off the blank. There's 2 hours and $8.95 I'll never get back again.

Thanks anyway for the ideas. Now, I'm off to see what next waste of time in the shop I can get myself into!

Don't think of it as a waste of time, but rather as a learning experience. It cost you 9 bucks and a couple hours, but you've learned through the process how you might have saved it had you tried a different approach, and next time you'll take advantage of that knowledge. And for no more than the time and money it would take to go out to eat a meal with a friend and chat for a while. Pretty good learning for the time and money invested!