What did you do in your shop today?

Tony said:
Rock, did that plastic I sent work for molds?
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The ones I built with it, it worked fine Tony. Pen blanks on the above post are out of slick little plastic mold I bought off Amazon. Have to figure it out, it doesn't have a lot of support and these are coming out with a little curl to them. But man that is a slick mold!!

Pack of 3, 4 slot pen molds... $9.99

ripjack13 said:
Wow!!! Those look impressive Rocky, I hope they work out for you!
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Have my fingers crossed the resin penetrated, if it did they should work great. If it didn't, get some where near almost nearly about and start turning with parting tool down to almost, then sand heavily. I Think! Joys of casting, you never know until you turn it. But I really don't think I can cook oatmeal off with Cactus Juice on it and not burn the tips of it. This stuff I soaked in DNA and dye, let the oat meal soak it all up and evaporate. Looks 'not good' when it dries! Pale, chalky looking, wasn't sure, but had a hunch the colors would pop when poured. They did!

Will know more this weekend if it warms up enough I can get in the shop.
 
Days have been beautiful, temps start falling about 4-5 o'clock, 35-42-35-33-42 for lows this week. Warms up fairly quick in the mornings too, but the shop cold of quick in the evening and doesn't warm up until about noon.


I'm almost in Georgia, about 8-10 miles from the Georgia line.
 
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Cleaned up all the wood shavings today and put them in two large trash cans. A neighbor from down the lane came by and took them for his chickens, brought me a dozen eggs when he returned my trash cans.
 
Just make sure there isn't any walnut in those shavings, very bad for animals.
 
The question for this forum was. What did you do in your shop today? Absolutely nothing. My mind has been running wild every since I have looked at the stablizeing process. I am cheating when I ask of Y'll this. How in the World do You come out with all the brilliant color's? I can't see how the colors don't overlap each other taking away from HD & the detailing of the lines.
 
Mark. said:
The question for this forum was. What did you do in your shop today? Absolutely nothing. My mind has been running wild every since I have looked at the stablizeing process. I am cheating when I ask of Y'll this. How in the World do You come out with all the brilliant color's? I can't see how the colors don't overlap each other taking away from HD & the detailing of the lines.
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Magic! :sarcastic:

Stabilizing is a science. Dyeing while stabilizing, especially adding two or more colors to a piece, is part science and part artform. For more than one color, I do a partial soak on a color and then cure the resin. Then I add the next color. I cure between each color and that is the key to keeping the two colors more distinct instead of them muddying together into brown or some other unintended color. As far as the brilliant colors - add dye to the resin. And not just a few drops of dye. It can take a pretty good amount of dye. It also takes time and practice, playing around with various techniques and dye concentrations to get whatever effects you're looking for.

But the time spent to work on it is worth it, IMO. I hate sanding, but I enjoy getting to see what the results are when I sand a blank after the final round of color and curing and then spray it with some DNA or a quick coat of finish to make the colors pop and see what I've got.

D2 (2).webp

DD1.webp

TQ1.webp
 
I finished the next step in reclaiming the most expensive free wood I've worked with so far.

I'm taking pieces from my brother-in-laws 4" hand scraped acacia flooring and making flat pieces of wood from them. On the drum sander because most pieces are too small to run through a planer. So they're all flat now and I just need to trim off tongues and grooves.

If it wasn't that I plan on making a segmented bowl/ulu knife forthem to match the floor this would have been firewood long ago.
 
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Lou Currier said:
Do you stand the half and half colors up when stabilizing to get that effect?
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Most often that's what I do when I'm double dyeing, but I do play around with other positions of the blank in the resin.
 
You certainly have a rare talent, that's well groomed. One more verdure that can't be taugh, can't be bought, can't be given, can't be taken. The only way You can have this verdure is a process, & it begins at a very Young age. It is called "patience". You seam to have achieved it. Well Done
 
Steve Walker said:
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Actually little heater may not be a bad plan. Been having problems with resin setting, thought it was catalyst, wondered if it was maybe temperature related. Put heat lamp with 40 watt vanity bulb in it on top of molds that had twice prescribed amount of catalyst in it, and hadn't set in 3 days... They set overnight! Not getting hot, maybe 70 degrees on top of the aluminum shroud. Forecast shows mid 30s to low 50s for lows for the next 10 days!
 
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