robutacion
Member
Hi everyone,
I can't explain why I keep looking for stuff to mix with resin and make pen blanks with when, I have more wood than one can poke a stick at, resin and power are damn expensive, the "bits" I buy are not for free, far from it and, I have already enough stuff to keep me busy...! silly, huh...???:redface:
Anyway, I saw some packets of colored beeds and other stuff used with them so I bough some bags and decided to put a wood divider on one of my x 6 pen blanks molds and make 3 blanks with the various materials, one was with the small round beeds only and the others with some of the shinny dividers that I see often used to make those beeds bracelets, neckless...!
I got also some bottles of silver and gold sparkles so, I mix a light colour resin added the sparkles and then pour all over the mold. The wood divider was 21mm high and that was a mistake, I should have made one another 10mm higher to stop the additives from the 2 adjoining blanks get mixed up but anyway, I got the various colours of each of the materials and sprinkle them on each half portion of the mold.
So far so good, I though...! I put the mold aside for about 10 minutes before I would check if the resin was starting to gel or not, which normally would take about 20 minutes or so. Well, I got a nasty surprise, the resin was jelled, just in time to scoup some of the beeds and dividers from the molds bottom but too late to mix them up evenly, the damn thing was far faster than ever before, the resin never leveled itself even after I quickly put it in the pressure pot at maximum pressure...!
An hour later, I got the mold out of the pot and the damn thing was hard as a rock, no stickiness on the molds surface, nothing so, I got the whole thing out of the mold and took it to the bandsaw for slicing/ripping.
Yeah, sure, a new blade and in seconds was smoking and blunt...???
Holy SSSSSUGAR, why did I not think from what these beeds are made with/from...??? If I had any kids, they would have told me something that I long forgot so, I wasn't a "happy camper"
Was too late for the bandsaw blade so, I persisted I got the 6 blanks cut but far from straight and the 3TPI tooth on that blade was...! not a lot of teeth left...!:frown:
I got that far, I wasn't going to give up now so, I put a blue (made for all sorts of materials, glass included, well sort of...!) sanding disk of my sander, got the blanks fairly straight, not without burning my fingers a couple of times, and then was time to turn one of each as the samples, right...???
I had a couple of options there but I did not hesitate in using my 36grit x 4" Flap disc sander/grinder and take it for a spin...!
What a spin that was too, those glass beeds are tough customers to cut, particularly in areas where was high concentration of them due to the inability to mix them properly trough the resin so, once again I persisted and got it round as I wanted.
The new Flap disc was totally destroyed, it would cut butter in summer time so, I had the rough 36 grit marks all over the blank and none of the usual sandpapers/grits could be used, they were useless on the glass so, I endup using some still sanding papers to get the scratches out. That was finally achieved so the rest was easy, as the CA coating would go as any other sample, thanks goodness for that, too...!:redface:
I reckon, gluing the beeds of the brass tube and then casting it as its done with many other materials attached to the brass tube, would be a lot better and less wastage of materials and time, I've got plenty of brass tubes for the El Grande pen, from a project that never went ahead so, I may try that, and see what happens...!
For god sake, why didn't I remember hat beeds are make of grass...???
Cheers
George
I can't explain why I keep looking for stuff to mix with resin and make pen blanks with when, I have more wood than one can poke a stick at, resin and power are damn expensive, the "bits" I buy are not for free, far from it and, I have already enough stuff to keep me busy...! silly, huh...???:redface:
Anyway, I saw some packets of colored beeds and other stuff used with them so I bough some bags and decided to put a wood divider on one of my x 6 pen blanks molds and make 3 blanks with the various materials, one was with the small round beeds only and the others with some of the shinny dividers that I see often used to make those beeds bracelets, neckless...!
I got also some bottles of silver and gold sparkles so, I mix a light colour resin added the sparkles and then pour all over the mold. The wood divider was 21mm high and that was a mistake, I should have made one another 10mm higher to stop the additives from the 2 adjoining blanks get mixed up but anyway, I got the various colours of each of the materials and sprinkle them on each half portion of the mold.
So far so good, I though...! I put the mold aside for about 10 minutes before I would check if the resin was starting to gel or not, which normally would take about 20 minutes or so. Well, I got a nasty surprise, the resin was jelled, just in time to scoup some of the beeds and dividers from the molds bottom but too late to mix them up evenly, the damn thing was far faster than ever before, the resin never leveled itself even after I quickly put it in the pressure pot at maximum pressure...!
An hour later, I got the mold out of the pot and the damn thing was hard as a rock, no stickiness on the molds surface, nothing so, I got the whole thing out of the mold and took it to the bandsaw for slicing/ripping.
Yeah, sure, a new blade and in seconds was smoking and blunt...???
Holy SSSSSUGAR, why did I not think from what these beeds are made with/from...??? If I had any kids, they would have told me something that I long forgot so, I wasn't a "happy camper"
Was too late for the bandsaw blade so, I persisted I got the 6 blanks cut but far from straight and the 3TPI tooth on that blade was...! not a lot of teeth left...!
:frown:I got that far, I wasn't going to give up now so, I put a blue (made for all sorts of materials, glass included, well sort of...!) sanding disk of my sander, got the blanks fairly straight, not without burning my fingers a couple of times, and then was time to turn one of each as the samples, right...???
I had a couple of options there but I did not hesitate in using my 36grit x 4" Flap disc sander/grinder and take it for a spin...!
What a spin that was too, those glass beeds are tough customers to cut, particularly in areas where was high concentration of them due to the inability to mix them properly trough the resin so, once again I persisted and got it round as I wanted.
The new Flap disc was totally destroyed, it would cut butter in summer time so, I had the rough 36 grit marks all over the blank and none of the usual sandpapers/grits could be used, they were useless on the glass so, I endup using some still sanding papers to get the scratches out. That was finally achieved so the rest was easy, as the CA coating would go as any other sample, thanks goodness for that, too...!:redface:
I reckon, gluing the beeds of the brass tube and then casting it as its done with many other materials attached to the brass tube, would be a lot better and less wastage of materials and time, I've got plenty of brass tubes for the El Grande pen, from a project that never went ahead so, I may try that, and see what happens...!
For god sake, why didn't I remember hat beeds are make of grass...???
Cheers
George
