Dai Sensei
Member
I was at the local dive club the other day and on the table was a lump of brain coral with very interesting flower like patterns. Unfortunately the owner was not prepared to part with it, even though I said I wanted to make a pen out of it for her. She did however say there was more she had seen and would pick it up for me the following weekend, which she did, but unfortunately it was not pretty brain coral like the other. It was still interesting though, so I still took up the challange.
I started by cutting off a blank using a 50mm diamond cutting disk in the dremmel under water in the sink, being carefull not to get water in the dremmel, can't say I was so careful about the water/cut spray that went all over the kitchen :redface:. Lucky there are no females in this house :biggrin:. I then drilled the hole for the tube using a small diamond coring bit in the drill press, using water dripped in the hole, then left to dry again before using high strength epoxy tinted white to glue in the tube. I chose an EB tube as the kits I have leave a lot of meat on the tube that I thought I might need. After leaving it for a week to ensure it had fully cured, I used the small drop grinder to then cut off the ends with the diamond cutting blade, then ground the ends flush on the wetgrind.
Then over to the lathe to get it down to size. I started with the angle grinder with the diamond blade, with the lathe on slow speed, then finished with high grade sand paper wet sanding. Let it dry again before using 3 thin and 22 thick CA coats to get it up to the correct dia (rather than casting).
Turned out Ok, but the brain coral definately would have been better. I'll show her this one and try again to convince her to give me the good lump, she could keep the left over from this one for her table
All good experience though for any future turning or rock type materials.
Cheers
I started by cutting off a blank using a 50mm diamond cutting disk in the dremmel under water in the sink, being carefull not to get water in the dremmel, can't say I was so careful about the water/cut spray that went all over the kitchen :redface:. Lucky there are no females in this house :biggrin:. I then drilled the hole for the tube using a small diamond coring bit in the drill press, using water dripped in the hole, then left to dry again before using high strength epoxy tinted white to glue in the tube. I chose an EB tube as the kits I have leave a lot of meat on the tube that I thought I might need. After leaving it for a week to ensure it had fully cured, I used the small drop grinder to then cut off the ends with the diamond cutting blade, then ground the ends flush on the wetgrind.
Then over to the lathe to get it down to size. I started with the angle grinder with the diamond blade, with the lathe on slow speed, then finished with high grade sand paper wet sanding. Let it dry again before using 3 thin and 22 thick CA coats to get it up to the correct dia (rather than casting).
Turned out Ok, but the brain coral definately would have been better. I'll show her this one and try again to convince her to give me the good lump, she could keep the left over from this one for her table
All good experience though for any future turning or rock type materials.
Cheers
