It doesn't pay to rush things.

[Monty]

I have an order for two full size Statesman FPs in rattlesnake to fill.
Painted the tubes black
Waited overnight to glue on the descaled skins
Waited 48 hours for CA to outgass
Coated skins with medium CA
Waited another 48 hours for CA to outgass
Weighed out 4 ounces of PR, warmed in water bath to thin
Placed in vacuum at 20" for bubbles to rise
Removed PR and added 4 drops catalyst per ounce and poured over tubes in resin saver molds
Hardened at RT in about an hour, but some of the PR leaked into the tubes so I needed to add a little more PR
Weighed out 7 ounces of PR (was casting something else also), warmed in water bath to thin
Placed in vacuum at 20" for bubbles to rise
Removed PR and added 4 drops catalyst per ounce and poured over tubes in resin saver molds
Must not have mixed the catalyst well because after 4 hours it had not even started to gel very much.
Decided to place in 150* toaster oven for a few minutes and this was the result. Wasn't in the oven for more than 5-10 minutes.
Looks like the PR shrunk from the skin.

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Why do you vacuum your PR before you mix in the catalyst instead of after?

Ed

 

[qballizhere]

I feel your pain. I was teaching my son to cast and the first thing he wanted to do was snakeskin. Out of 20 blanks he had 2 come out.

 

[Monty]

Why do you vacuum your PR before you mix in the catalyst instead of after?

Ed

Just a habit carried over from degassing my Alumilite before I mix A and B together.

 

[jaeger]

Every time that I have leaks, I end up with problems.

 

[Tom D]

Brings to mind an old saying "The faster you go the behinder you get"

 

[Gilrock]

So I saw the thread title and then see the author is my PITH partner and thought...Oh no...my pen blew up.

Yeah I had a similar thing happen recently. My wife painted a set of tubes with an american flag planted on the moon on one half and the space shuttle flying through space on the other and everything looked fine until I put it in the oven for 15 minutes to get rid of the tackiness. There are some spots where it looks like a slight gap between the paint and the resin. I'm not using an oven anymore...it's not worth it. Actually the blank looks good enough that I'll probably make a pen myself with it but it's not good enough I'd feel right offering it for sale.

I also started using vacuum to remove bubbles before pouring. I tried removing the bubbles and then mixing in the catalyst but I guess I don't stir very carefully because after mixing I have more bubbles than before I started. So now I just mix it up and then use the vacuum. Everything works great...I just make sure I don't spend more than a minute with the vacuum.

 

[sbell111]

I no longer use my oven for that purpose. Generally, I will just let the blanks sit to get rid of tackiness. For more soupy blanks, a light bulb inside a box gets the job done, eventually.

 

[its_virgil]

The PR did not shrink the skin but the oven sure may have. Toaster oven temp controls are not the most accurate. Calibrate it with a thermometer. 130 or so may be enough.
Do a good turn daily!
Don

 

[Texatdurango]

Monty, May I make a suggestion? Look in the library for a tutorial by Don Ward, it's got to be in there somewhere.

A few years ago I hosted one of our IAP get-togethers at my shop and Don did a demo on snakeskin blanks for everyone.

I don't remember now what was done in what order but I do know he started out cutting some snake skins on some glass panels to the proper size then attached them to some blanks. In the meantime he had some polyester resin in one of those cheap Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaners with the heat on, warming and vibrating the resin. He sat the prepared blanks in a mold, mixed catalyst into the resin that had been vibrating and warming and filled the mold cavities.

After curing for a while he removed the blanks and offered them as a door prize.

The reason I mention this is that all of this took place within an hour from cutting the skins to pouring the resin then another hour or two to pop the blanks from the molds and the cured blanks went home with one of the turners that afternoon.

Just like there are hundreds of methods for applying CA finishes, there may be dozens of methods used for snake skin blanks but Don has been the undisputed snakeskin blank pro for years and has a system down pat that is fast, it seems like you are trying so hard with all the degassing, etc and taking several days.

Just something to consider.

 

[sbell111]

I wonder if Don either uses alumilite or was doing the cooking show trick where you swap out the items at each step so you don't get bogged down due to time requirements or get stuck with a mucked up item at some point along the process.

 

[Texatdurango]

I wonder if Don either uses alumilite or was doing the cooking show trick where you swap out the items at each step so you don't get bogged down due to time requirements or get stuck with a mucked up item at some point along the process.

I was there and no parlor tricks were used. He definitely was using polyester resin and no swapping was done to save time, we had all day and no one was in a hurry.

 

[seamus7227]

I have to say, i used to use my toaster oven to post cure my snakeskin blanks till i got tired of too many errors. It has been my experience that even a measured temp of 150 from a toaster oven can kill your blanks. So why risk it. But there is more than 'one way to skin a cat' as they say. I just pulled out 4 blanks from the pressure pot that look flawless and all i did was give the resin a bath for 10 minutes with the heat setting on my ultrasonic cleaner turned on:


4 ounces were poured and this was my process:

-1 cycle of 480 seconds w/ heat
-1 cycle of 280 seconds w/heat
-3 drops per once+1 for good measure
-mixed for 30 seconds and poured
-immediately placed in pressure pot and put under 65lbs pressure
-let sit for 24 hrs., opened pot and wha-la!

 

[Holz Mechaniker]

Just like my Grandmother would say, "The hurrier you go the behinder you get.":biggrin: