Casting PR-Don Ward's Tutorial

[Randy_]

Don: I don't cast PR and probably never will....already have too many things on my plate to add something else. That being said, I did read through your article just to get an idea of what was involved and how the process works. After reading the article, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how things work.

During the course of reading the article, two questions came to mind. The first and easiest is the dimensions of the little wooden blocks that the tubes are glued to. You did mention that the wooden pieces were about 1/16" thick; but I don't recall that the other dimensions were mentioned. From the picture, they appear to be about 1" square; but pictures can be misleading.

Second question has to do with what appears to be quite a large amount of waste of the PR. I know PR is not exactly cheap and I was wondering if you had experimented with ways to reduce the amount of PR required and still have blanks of the required size? Speaking of which, what size blanks does your method produce? Thanks in advance.

 

[its_virgil]

Randy,
The little wooden standoffs are sliced from 3/4" square stock. I make them as thin as I can to help reduce the tendency to want to float. I pour the resin to the top of the standoffs so the cast is 3/4" thick and when sliced into blanks the blanks are 3/4" square. I can reduce the size of the standoffs if I cast only slimline tubes and increast the size if I cast larger blanks like the gent or havana or statesman. As for the waste, one mold has a little waste and another does not. The cost of the resin for one blank is about 55 cents, so the waste isn't really a cost factor...at least not at time time. If I were using the $80 per gallon resin, it might be more of a factor. Next time I revise the article, I'll add dimensions. I thought I told what size stock I used to make the standoffs.
Do a good turn daily!
Don'

Originally posted by Randy_
<br />Don: I don't cast PR and probably never will....already have too many things on my plate to add something else. That being said, I did read through your article just to get an idea of what was involved and how the process works. After reading the article, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how things work.

During the course of reading the article, two questions came to mind. The first and easiest is the dimensions of the little wooden blocks that the tubes are glued to. You did mention that the wooden pieces were about 1/16" thick; but I don't recall that the other dimensions were mentioned. From the picture, they appear to be about 1" square; but pictures can be misleading.

Second question has to do with what appears to be quite a large amount of waste of the PR. I know PR is not exactly cheap and I was wondering if you had experimented with ways to reduce the amount of PR required and still have blanks of the required size? Speaking of which, what size blanks does your method produce? Thanks in advance.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by its_virgil
<br />.....I thought I told what size stock I used to make the standoffs.

You did. I missed it during the first reading, Sorry.