dai sensei
27th August 2009, 10:52 PM
Been doing quite a bit of coffee bean casting lately. I've been stablizing the beans first with some wood hardener under pressure for ~4hrs (they are then just starting to soften), let them dry overnight (minimium), then cast in resin when I have spare left-over from WW casting. I turned 2 Sierras to see how the stabilized beans went, in leiu of unstabilized where they often popped, and they seemed to work out better. Finished them with CA, they looked great, then put them away in the box with all the other pens.
Today, 3 days later, I went to a project workshop and thought I'd take one to show. When I pulled it out at work I noticed the CA surface was lumpy. Initially I thought it was cracked but on closer examination, I found the beans had shrunk, causing the surface to dip over most of the beans. The things that looked liked cracks were where the CA had started to delaminate around the edge of some of the beans. I then thought either dud beans, or the stabilizer hadn't set/gone off properly.
Back home I checked the second pen using the same beans and turned at the same time, it was still perfect :?
I can refinish, but was wondering what went wrong. Any ideas?
Cheers
Today, 3 days later, I went to a project workshop and thought I'd take one to show. When I pulled it out at work I noticed the CA surface was lumpy. Initially I thought it was cracked but on closer examination, I found the beans had shrunk, causing the surface to dip over most of the beans. The things that looked liked cracks were where the CA had started to delaminate around the edge of some of the beans. I then thought either dud beans, or the stabilizer hadn't set/gone off properly.
Back home I checked the second pen using the same beans and turned at the same time, it was still perfect :?
I can refinish, but was wondering what went wrong. Any ideas?
Cheers