Worthless wood polyester resin??

[SDTurner]

Hi,

I was wondering if it's possible to cast worthless wood or another small wood pieces using castin craft clear polyester casting resin? I don't have access to a pressure pot or compressor to be able to use alumilite to case a blank for pen or shave brush handles. So I was wondering has anyone tried to use the polyester resin to case this? If so will the PR stick to wood the same way as alumilite would and won't saperate while turning?

I tried to search and most the info I found was everyone uses alumilite and unfortunately I can't use it as no pressure pot and it's expensive compared to 40% off from Michael's for the casting craft PR.

Any advice or anything I should do deferent or special while I cast PR and some wood together? And anything I should watch out for while drilling the blank? I made my first pen over the weekend and it turned out great. I'll post pics in the correct subforum regarding that. But I sure would like to make sole wood/colored resin blanks.

Thanks,
Andy

 

[wood-of-1kind]

Yes, it will work. May shrink more than alumalite but PR is fine. A pressure pot works best to get into cracks and crevices of worthless wood. If you get air bubbles due to lack of using a pressure pot, simply use CA to fill bubble void.

 

[Whitehat1994]

I have a vacuum pump my dad used to pull a vacuum on a car's a/c system. Could I build a vacuum chamber with some kind of PVC? Would this work for what is discussed on this thread? What is a vacuum used for?
Thanks!

 

[budnder]

Not really advising this, but something that happened to me, that you might find interesting...

When I was just getting started, I had a couple of "less than ideal" wood blanks blow out, so threw them in a PVC tube filled with PR and put them in a pressure pot at 30PSI and they seemed to come out just fine - I think I could have turned them. Before I got around to turning them, though, my Vacuum pump arrived, so I ended up throwing the PR filled worthless wood in with some other stuff I was stabilizing. The resulting repaired blank turned just fine without any special care.

I didn't try it, but I don't think PR without pressure would work due to the PR shrinking away from the wood when it cured. I suppose it's easy and cheap enough to try, though. I remember reading somewhere that you might have to use CA occasionally on the PR/Wood joint as you're turning.

I stabilize first now (using vacuum) and then fill with Alumilite and cure under pressure.

 

[79spitfire]

It will work, I've done it. The PR doesn't stick to the wood as well as Alumilite does, and you can end up gluing pieces back in.

 

[SDTurner]

Darn that really sucks. PR is much cheaper compared to alumilite with Michael's coupon and no pressure pot requirement. Maybe ill switch to alumilite if I ever end up getting a pressure pot setup on a budget.

 

[SDB777]

I've had pretty good results using pressure(40-ish lbs) with Simlar41....mostly on items such as hemlock cones, Sweetgum pods, acorn 'lids', and the list goes on. Rarely do I have 'issues' with things coming out. If I do have something 'come out' it's because my tools were dull.


Scott (give it a try) B