lwalden
Member
Trying to figure out where it all went wrong..... I'm planning on putting together a segmented blank for an Imperial kit and wanted to have a better idea of how it might look before starting, so tried to do a sierra in the same style using cut-offs from a malachite tru-stone pen and a Casein pen. You can see in the picture below the direction I'm trying to get- however you can also see how the casein section ended up being discolored, almost having a "toasted" look. The Casein Jr Emperor I made from which (whence?) this cut-off came did not exhibit any of the discoloration- and while I'm not sure, I think there may have been a little similar discoloration to the ejecta while drilling this blank, which I did on the lathe. When I drilled the blanks for the Jr Emperor, I'm sure they came out the same ivory color as the finished product, with no discoloration. I'm sure I was drilling at a higher speed on the lathe than I was on the Drill Press, and so am wondering if this may be from heat build up. Ed suggested another possibility may be that the casein (being porous) picked up contaminates during sanding, possibly from the aluminum strips- which could also account for why I didn't have any issues with the Jr Emperor, since it was single material blanks. At any rate, thought I'd see if there was anyone else wanting to suggest a cause for this effect, or if anyone else had experienced anything similar while working with casein? I'd hate to end up with the same effect on Imperial blanks if I/we can figure out what happened and what I can do to avoid a repeat.