Alumilite
Member
Many of you have been wondering about the recent release of the Crystal Clear resin from Alumilite. Well, I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you the evolution of the product and how it differs from the Water Clear.
The original Water Clear was created to meet the demand of rapid prototyping and automotive restoration applications many years ago and then snowballed into many different applications such as medical, taxidermy, hobby, penturning, rotational molding and much more. Although the product was not specifically designed with some of these secondary applications in mind ... such as penturning, it works extremely well and has become a goto resin for many.
After having many lengthy conversations with Curtis last year, and him explaing to me how he loved the Water Clear for all of his casting, he helped me understand that there were a couple distinct areas in which he thought the Water Clear could still be improved for penturning even though he said it is absolutely the best thing going as far as he was concerned. First was the polishability. Second was the work time.
I thought these were both realistic goals in developing a new system althouh I was a little concerned with the demold time extending much further out and was also worried about the material becoming more "brittle" if we tried to alter the polishability. Our urethanes have very good elongation and traditionally are much tougher than many other chemistries of resins however when we start talking polishability we are really concerned with hardness and hard segments. We don't have a problem making urethanes absolutely rock hard but then we do, its possible to lose some of our impact strength which brings us down closer to the performance of other chemistries.
So to make a long story short ... after developing and sampling a number of different batches of a new clear to Curtis as well as a couple people from other industries we developed the Crystal Clear resin. The material not only kept the same great low odor, beautiful clarity, easy to use (1:1 mix ratio), fast demold time, and UV stablilty but also gives the user a couple more minutes of open time (more user friendly catalyst) while keeping a relatively similar demold time. The other big advantage is that we have improved the polishability by increasing the hard segments while not giving away the farm in toughness. It machines/turns differently which Curtis may comment on but overall seems to be a solid option for those looking for a couple more minutes of work time and better polishing out of their resin.
So to curve all further rumors ... yes, the Crystal Clear was specifically developed with the penturner in mind. A special thanks to Curtis as well as Larry Dahlberg for their time, input and evaluation of the numerous test batches.
Mike
Alumilite
800 447-9344
The original Water Clear was created to meet the demand of rapid prototyping and automotive restoration applications many years ago and then snowballed into many different applications such as medical, taxidermy, hobby, penturning, rotational molding and much more. Although the product was not specifically designed with some of these secondary applications in mind ... such as penturning, it works extremely well and has become a goto resin for many.
After having many lengthy conversations with Curtis last year, and him explaing to me how he loved the Water Clear for all of his casting, he helped me understand that there were a couple distinct areas in which he thought the Water Clear could still be improved for penturning even though he said it is absolutely the best thing going as far as he was concerned. First was the polishability. Second was the work time.
I thought these were both realistic goals in developing a new system althouh I was a little concerned with the demold time extending much further out and was also worried about the material becoming more "brittle" if we tried to alter the polishability. Our urethanes have very good elongation and traditionally are much tougher than many other chemistries of resins however when we start talking polishability we are really concerned with hardness and hard segments. We don't have a problem making urethanes absolutely rock hard but then we do, its possible to lose some of our impact strength which brings us down closer to the performance of other chemistries.
So to make a long story short ... after developing and sampling a number of different batches of a new clear to Curtis as well as a couple people from other industries we developed the Crystal Clear resin. The material not only kept the same great low odor, beautiful clarity, easy to use (1:1 mix ratio), fast demold time, and UV stablilty but also gives the user a couple more minutes of open time (more user friendly catalyst) while keeping a relatively similar demold time. The other big advantage is that we have improved the polishability by increasing the hard segments while not giving away the farm in toughness. It machines/turns differently which Curtis may comment on but overall seems to be a solid option for those looking for a couple more minutes of work time and better polishing out of their resin.
So to curve all further rumors ... yes, the Crystal Clear was specifically developed with the penturner in mind. A special thanks to Curtis as well as Larry Dahlberg for their time, input and evaluation of the numerous test batches.
Mike
Alumilite
800 447-9344
