Interesting problem with casting coffee beans

[Dai Sensei]

Been doing quite a bit of coffee bean casting lately. I've been stablizing the beans first with some wood hardener under pressure for ~4hrs (they are then just starting to soften), let them dry overnight (minimium), then cast in resin when I have spare left-over from WW casting. I turned 2 Sierras to see how the stabilized beans went, in leiu of unstabilized where they often popped, and they seemed to work out better. Finished them with CA, they looked great, then put them away in the box with all the other pens.

Today, 3 days later, I went to a project workshop and thought I'd take one to show. When I pulled it out at work I noticed the CA surface was lumpy. Initially I thought it was cracked but on closer examination, I found the beans had shrunk, causing the surface to dip over most of the beans. The things that looked liked cracks were where the CA had started to delaminate around the edge of some of the beans. I then thought either dud beans, or the stabilizer hadn't set/gone off properly.

Back home I checked the second pen using the same beans and turned at the same time, it was still perfect

I can refinish, but was wondering what went wrong. Any ideas?

Cheers

 

[titan2]

Looks like some of the beans may not of been completely dried/hardened or they may of soaked up more of the solution that the ones from the other pen, thus the reason for the other pen still looking good!


Barney

 

[Dai Sensei]

Thanks Barney, that makes sense to me. I better make sure I leave them a bit longer before casting. Might also part turn those already cast and leave them to breath before finishing.