UV cured finish?

[SkewedUp]

A guy stopped to talk to me at my booth last Saturday. He makes pool cues and we discussed a lot of different things, but the one that really got my curiosity up was that he uses a UV cured finish. It sounded interesting and he said it would probably be a good finish for pens. I'm hoping to get a chance to visit his shop one of these days to find out more about the process.

I've never heard of that kind of finish before and a quick internet search did not turn up anything related to pens, so I wondered if anyone here at IAP has ever used this method on pens and/or bottle stoppers.

 

[roddesigner]

Doug I had a professional machine for doing this mainly for repairing guides on fishing rods, the product would work on wood and was excellent when done by the pros on pool cues, I played with it for nearly three years and could get a nice finish on a pen, but never as good as CA.
]t is fast 30 seconds from application to cure some problems are it is quite thick and can be hard to use
What might be the largest hurdle is cost the machines are expensive as is the varnish,you almost have to use the same bulbs etc that come with the machine as the finish cures best at certain wavelengths and with some bulbs etc will not cure at all, vast amount of info is available on line re the various uv cured finishes enough that only an engineer could love it all
That was my experience with using i

 

[SkewedUp]

Thanks for your reply John, that is good info.

You are right that there is a lot of info about UV finishes online, but most were for large items and were very expensive to set up for. But I might be able to work a trade with the pool cue maker if it is something that will produce a nice finish. Pool cues always seem to have such a nice finish on them and I've often wondered how the finish is applied...I guess I'll find out soon.

Interestingly, my search turned up some nail polish curing UV lights that look like they might be about the right size for pen curing at a lot lower cost.

Another interesting idea I saw was a place that had a spray on version of the finish that they claim cures immediately when applied under the UV lights. I'm guessing that a sprayed on finish might not have to be so thick.

 

[farmer]

might be of interest
Taylor Factory Tour Part 3 - Finish Application - YouTube
farmer