Cholla Success Thank You

[woodwzrd]

A few days ago I posted about some issues I was having with Alumilite and Cholla. well after taking all of the great advise I got and applying it I have had a successful test cast. I baked my cholla in my toaster oven for 2 hours at 175 and than turned it on for another 30 minutes with the mold in it. I mixed A and B together then tinted it. I then cast it under 80 lbs. for 1 1/2 hours and it came out great. My wife has wanted a single tube cholla pen that shows off more cholla than resin and I think I nailed it. Here is the result.

 

[toyotaman]

That is an awesome looking pen. Great colors.

 

[RMayoIII]

I cast a lot of cholla, but I've never seen anything like that. Where are the hollow windows? What part of the plant is that and where did you get it?

 

[Edward Cypher]

I would be interested too. Doesn't look like Cholla.

I cast a lot of cholla, but I've never seen anything like that. Where are the hollow windows? What part of the plant is that and where did you get it?

 

[woodwzrd]

This is what I am using for cholla. It is about 2" in diameter so I split it in half and then cut the halves into pieces that fit in my mold which is 7/8 square by 5.5" long.

 

[healeydays]

I was going to ask the same question, but it explains the difference. It looked like a wasted wood blank before he explained.

 

[Edward Cypher]

Thanks for the explanation. Cool idea, thinking outside the box. Nice job.

 

[sbell111]

It looks great to me.

My thing with cholla is that in order to get the 'windows', you have to use oversized molds which use up quite a bit more resin and pressure chamber real estate.

I was a bit surprised to read that you cast it under 80 pounds of pressure. That seems like a whole lot more pressure than was necessary to collapse any residual bubbles.