Odd idea for the day...

[jimbob91577]

Has anyone tried casting salt? The reason I ask is, one could cast some large salt crystals in say black resin, and after hardening, wash the salt out, then mix up a batch of gold or silver casting resin and recast the blanks again filling the voids with the gold/silver resin.

Instantly you would have a gold/silver nugget pen.

Thoughts, or am I completely crazy?

 

[rjwolfe3]

That would be so cool. I wonder if it would work? May have to try it and find out. Do you think rock salt would better then table salt?

 

[jimbob91577]

My only fear with rock salt would be the rocks...If it turns out good, let me know...I'd be interested in buying a blank or two. I was thinking the Sno-Melt stuff or something along those lines...

 

[rjwolfe3]

Ah even better. Which is the stuff they use to make old fashioned ice cream?

 

[Glass Scratcher]

What is the temperature of liquid gold or silver?

 

[NewLondon88]

You would need to do it after turning.. You couldn't wash out the interior crystals unless
they were touching other cells that have been washed out. (if the crystal is surrounded
by the resin, you couldn't wash it out OR fill it)

After turning, you could wash out the cells that are exposed. Then you could re-cast
it in the gold or silver resin and turn it again. Might be difficult filling all the voids though.

Still .. interesting idea!

 

[rjwolfe3]

mix up a batch of gold or silver casting resin

What is the temperature of liquid gold or silver?

That would be an expensive blank but I think the OP was talking about Gold or Silver colored PR.

 

[JAG]

I dont know about salt but I have tried rice it looks awesome. Made duck calls out of it.

 

[workinforwood]

I hope your pen doesn't get rusty!

It'll work..probably take a few days of soaking to get the salt out. I think it would be more feasable and cheaper just to spin the blank down close to done, then hog a bunch of holes in it with a dremel and re pore.

 

[artistwood]

ok, this would be tedious but you could CA individual salt crystals. cast in one color then turn down thin. then glue the saltcrystals on one by one. next cast it again with the same color resin. when cured, turn it down to the salt crystals. soak the blank long enough to disolve the salt. then, recast with a gold metalic resin. when you turn it down again you should see "GOLD" !
or you could CA some gold leaf you wadded up to the tube and do it that way.
i haven't cast pen blanks before so take this with a grain of salt!!! :biggrin:

 

[mostangrypirate]

would have to be rock, not table. that would give you the "nugget" jagged shaped void. if you could actually wash out the salt, you might use a suringe to fill the voids w/out bubbles.

 

[jimbob91577]

What if you cast with the tubes already embedded with salt crystals that were roughly 1/4" in size? This should in theory be bigger than the thickness of the material after turning.

Rough turn, dissolve the salt, and recast?

 

[low_48]

You might also be able to take chunks of white bead board insulation (or foam coffee cups), then melt that out with lacquer thinner. It sure would be faster, only a few seconds for that to work. I don't cast, so I don't know if lacquer thinner will cloud the resin or not.

 

[Glass Scratcher]

Apparently I can't read correctly...


How about casting your gold and silver in a thin sheet then after it has absolutly cured and post cured, break it up under a roller so you have the size fragments/nuggets you want, then just cast again using your fragments as filler...

 

[Mather323]

Yes I have and it looks fine for a while. Why do they put rice in salt shakers? After a while it asorbes water and starts to desolve. It also does some nasty things to the brass as the time passes.

Mike