Dealing with bubbles in resin blanks?

[jrista]

I've been turning some higher end resin blanks recently (alumalite, which seem to be rather expensive ($13-$16 for the ones I've turned), and a couple of "stardust" blanks. The alumalite, I think they were just fluke bubbles...only one or two. The stardust blanks have gold leaf flakes in them, and I am thinking that may lead to more bubbles...I have around a dozen or so on a fountain pen I recently turned on both the pen body and its cap, which is the worst example of the lot.

With the stardust, I also had a couple of places where the resin just chipped off, leaving a larger flake of gold leaf behind. I suspect it didn't bond to the gold leaf or something. Anyway, I tried to fill those in with some CA...which at first seemed to work, but once I turned that back down again, the CA just looked like it had a dense spiderweb of cracks, or maybe crystal formation, or something...didn't really look all that great.

It wasn't until I started wet sanding that I noticed all the bubble holes...none of them were large, at most half a millimeter maybe, but they all captured the sanding slurry, which was a pinkish-white color with this particular blank. At first I was able to use air to blow them out, however when I went and did my final polishing with pen polish, that filled them in as well, and that stuff would not budge, even with the air pressure rather high.

I tried to clear out the polish residue with some needles. I was able to dig out the bulk, but the walls of each bubble are still the grayish-white of the polishing compound. I've tried using some water, some DNA, even tried to work a wet toothpick in there. So far, I'm not having any luck. At the very least, I think if I could get the white powdery residue out of them, they would mostly be invisible...but, I'm not sure if there is even a way to do that at this point.

I'm curious, has anyone else run into this issue? What is a good way to deal with remnant bubbles in resin blanks? I there any way to keep them from getting filled up with slurry or polishing compounds, or any of the other dust and residue we are always dealing with?

 

[Dalecamino]

Wash your blanks in Dawn dish soap. It may take a soft bristle brush. Not usually for me.

 

[MRDucks2]

I would certainly reach out to whoever you bought the blanks from. It sounds like they are trying to sell a higher end blank that isn't. They would normally be concerned and either offer replacements or an explanation of what is going on.

 

[Displaced Canadian]

After you clean out the voids you can use CA to fill them in.

 

[jrista]

I have had trouble with the CA fill. Once I put CA in, then I have to turn that back down to the level of the blank. Sometimes the CA seems to just get pulled out, sometimes the next passes of turning reveal more bubbles...

I'll give dawn soap a try...honestly don't know why "soap" didn't occur to me.

 

[MRDucks2]

Just a couple of comments from my experimenting. Tried embossing powder as an additive to resin - it stays pretty much in bead form, tiny but noticeable and gives a grainy looking texture. When turned the tiny beads would disintegrate or remain but be white looking, like bubble with sanding dust in them.

Also, depending on the type of pigment it is possible to many bubble-like tiny pockets of in mixed/dissolved pigment.

Of course, there are just bubbles, also. If the Alumilite resin required pressure it is possible it was not pressuring soon enough. If it did not require pressure (Alumilite makes many different resins) - they seem to be a bit more reactive to the environment, sensitive to mixing and reactive to what else you put in the resin. The result is very tiny bubbles that may not be distinct to the naked eye but create a "haze" in clear resin and typically cannot be easily seen in colored resin.

Again, reach out to the maker.