CA refusing to harden

[Skie_M]

Trying to create a blank using superglue as the bonding agent for the material that I want suspended in the acrylic ...

I washed the material to ensure that it was dust-free and then dried it for an hour (using radiant heat). I then flooded a container with CA while adding the material to ensure that there was no splashing or bubbles introduced, shaking the container to settle the material to the bottom.

That was 4 hours ago .... it's still liquid all the way through the container! There was also still liquid on top!

I decided to add baking soda to the top, to see if the reaction would help .... now the top is hard and milky white (I intended to turn that section away anyways), but the rest is still liquid!


What do I need to do to make this thing solid?

 

[jttheclockman]

My question is WHY??? That is got to be the biggest hazard pot. The smell has to be killing you. Why not use epoxy or even a casting resin??? You can leave a tube of CA open for days and it will not harden. I would never had gone there. No pen blank is worth that. Sorry but that is my opinion.

 

[Skie_M]

Actually, I don't smell any fumes from it ...

I looked for my epoxy, but I only have the little tubes from HF ... and only 1 set at that, it's not enough for this blank.

I have no casting resins at all ... I guess I'll just leave this sitting someplace safe for a week or so and see if it hardens up.


Meanwhile, I do have that pair of epoxy tubes that I can use to make a smaller blank for another purpose ... gonna do that now that I have a spare container to let it cure in. (Had dinner, included microwave bowl of shells'n'cheese ... perfect size! I only need it to be about 1/4 inch thick.)

 

[CrashmanS]

CA will not do what your expecting it to. You need the right tool for the job.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

 

[edstreet]

You can EASILY do this with CA. I have done it but you have to have the right CA as your standard ECA may not work good.

Baking soda causes the white frosty glaze and extreme heat involved in that which makes it a bad idea. What you do need is good accelerator. Also you did not mention how THICK this item was so you need to take that into account. Adding CA in thickness you must take the PH shift into account and it becomes even more important as you increase the thickness.

After a certain point it's better, easier to use casting resin than it is to use CA. It still can be done but your life becomes a whole lot better by switching.

 

[Skie_M]

2 inches wide, round, 3 inches long (large pill bottle)


I was planning to use about 3 oz of epoxy for it, but I only had 0.5 oz on hand ... I made a wider, much flatter blank using the half oz of epoxy, and filled it with crushed abalone shell. It turned out to be just about exactly 1/4 inch tall, and over 3 inches wide... (this one is meant to go on a mirror compact or some other vanity project that requires flat discs around 2 inches wide)

I'll have to get some more epoxy and do that again, though it turned out a tiny bit cloudy, with some bubbles here and there. I may need to invest in some of the longer set time epoxy, as this stuff was the 5 minute type, and a small pressure pot would likely be called for. I don't really want to get too deep into casting, yet. I just have a friend who's going ga-ga over abalone shell, and wants a perfume atomizer made with this stuff.

 

[Skie_M]

Hmmm ... the epoxy hardened up nicely, but this abalone shell turned out to be quite a bit harder and tougher than I had thought. Little bits of shell kept popping out till I got it down near round, and I had to keep supergluing them back into the holes they popped out of, if I could find them.

The air bubbles were a bit of an issue, as well, and the resin itself looks .... dirty? (tiny air bubbles suspended in the epoxy)

Beyond that, the abalone shell looks gorgeous, where I managed to sand it down and polish it up.

I have a piece that is pretty much the shape and size I'ld need, but I'm going to have to try this again to get a much cleaner looking piece to put on a compact.

Meanwhile, I think the CA blank is pretty much hardened, but I'm going to give it a few more days and see if it continues to get cloudy (milky on top, crystal clear in middle and on bottom).

After this Friday, I plan to go down to Hobby Lobby and pick up some Alumalite Clear and see if I can make this work properly. I have plenty of abalone shell on hand to work with.

 

[Skie_M]

Came out hard as a rock, with only a few bubbles that I can see round the outsides and near the top ....


There is a white haziness around the top 1/3 of the blank (it's the size of a bottle stopper or a bit larger) that looks VERY much like a coral growth ... part of this white looking cloudiness extends almost to the halfway point. It looks pretty cool!

I've drilled it all the way through with a 7mm bit, and I'm waiting pick up a 37/64 bit in something OTHER than a brad point, as that just plain sucks for drilling a hole in this stuff. It polishes up beautifully ...



Oh ... and this will be a tabletop perfume atomizer (PSI kit).


So ... while it refused to harden right away, it did eventually harden after a while. (I left it sitting on a mirrored tray in the bathroom for a week, to let more moisture get to it.)