Coffee bean blanks

**curseddagger** · 31st July 2015, 12:36 PM

Hi all,

Just wondering who has had experience with coffee bean casting into pen blanks? and if there are any gotcha's to look out for. I read a post from dai sensei saying that some of the beans shrunk, anyone else had the problem?

I tried beans in PVC pipe with polyester resin and overnight in the pressure pot but it turned out crap, full of bubbles that couldn't escape around the beans and the resin was quite viscous.

Also how do you get all the air out from around the coffee beans? I've got a pressure pot and a vacuum chamber plus cactus juice and polyester resin but i reckon the polyester resin will set up before i can get the bubbles out.

my sister's partner has his 21st birthday coming up and he is a barista and loves his coffee so i figured a coffee bean pen would be a good fit.

Cheers,
James

**dai sensei** · 31st July 2015, 03:45 PM

Don't vacuum cast, there is just too much air in the beans, you must use pressure for the cast.

The biggest problem you have is a coffee bean is actually a bean within a bean, so even if cast correctly, whilst turning the inside bit flies out. I have found stabilising the beans first then casting works best. I haven't tried using Cactus Juice yet, I still had heaps of beans I did with wood hardener, but should be ok. I vacuumed for hours then left them to soak overnight before baking and leaving them for a more than a week before casting.

**curseddagger** · 31st July 2015, 03:58 PM

thanks dai sensei, i've read that cactus juice applied before casting doesn't really work as the two don't bond well in that order. i'll probably just give it a try and see what happens.

p.s. ive never used vacuum for casting resin, just silicon and for stabilising.

**dai sensei** · 31st July 2015, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by curseddagger

.. i've read that cactus juice applied before casting doesn't really work as the two don't bond well in that order..

Yes that was my experience, hence why I used the wood hardener, but the guys in USA say Ok with current formula. I haven't tried it either yet.

**curseddagger** · 31st July 2015, 04:06 PM

I'll report how it turns out then

**curseddagger** · 31st July 2015, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by dai sensei

I still had heaps of beans I did with wood hardener, but should be ok.

Do you still have the picture from this thread available somewhere? wouldn't mind seeing the results!
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f222/d...blanks-115042/

**curseddagger** · 13th August 2015, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by curseddagger

I'll report how it turns out then

No good, the beans are too brittle and chip or fall out completely.
The blanks crack really easy when drilling. I had a successful pen barrel and cap but the thread in the cap was a slightly different size to the thread on the pen body...

I'll try again tomorrow but if it doesn't work this time i'll chalk it up as a fail.

**dai sensei** · 13th August 2015, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by curseddagger

Do you still have the picture from this thread available somewhere? wouldn't mind seeing the results!
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f222/d...blanks-115042/

Sorry, I must have missed this before, here's some of mine in various Pearlex

coffee bean pens.jpg coffee beans.jpg

Even some glow in the dark ones

, back when it was glow sand that sank all the time, not like the fine stuff we have today

Glow pens.JPG glow pens2.JPG

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