Heat and/or humidity

[bgibb42]

I've been working on getting a CA or CA/BLO finish on my pens for a few months now, but have been mostly unsuccessful to this point. I understand that some woods do not take finishes well, so that may be part of the problem, but I also wonder if the conditions in my shop are affecting my finishes. I have a separate building from my house, and it is not air conditioned (yet). I also recently poured my first batch of PR, and while the color did not work out as I had hoped (that's a separate issue), the resulting blanks were VERY brittle. I tried a second batch, using much less catalyst, and had the same result. Both castings were left out to cure on the bench in the shop overnight. All of this is done recently here in Georgia, with temperatures in the high 80's to mid 90's during the afternoon and relatively high humidity most days. Any thoughts?

 

[jkeithrussell]

I live in Houston where it is also hot and humid. I quit using BLO and almost all of my problems with CA went away. I just use medium CA and a spritz of aerosol accelerator. Repeat as necessary. I also don't have trouble using this method with the woods that give people fits -- like cocobolo and rosewood.

Can't help you with the PR question, but I'll be following the thread for the answer. I just bought the materials to start casting my own blanks.

Good luck.

 

[ldb2000]

What brand of PR are you using ? Different brands of PR are more brittle then others . I think Castin craft resins are the most brittle , from what's been said here .
Heat and catalyst affect the amount of shrinkage more then how brittle your blanks will be . The type of pigments and how much you use can also affect the brittleness to a point .
High humidity can cause clear casts to come out cloudy and also will cause a longer cure time .