I've been turning some higher end resin blanks recently (alumalite, which seem to be rather expensive ($13-$16 for the ones I've turned), and a couple of "stardust" blanks. The alumalite, I think they were just fluke bubbles...only one or two. The stardust blanks have gold leaf flakes in them, and I am thinking that may lead to more bubbles...I have around a dozen or so on a fountain pen I recently turned on both the pen body and its cap, which is the worst example of the lot.
With the stardust, I also had a couple of places where the resin just chipped off, leaving a larger flake of gold leaf behind. I suspect it didn't bond to the gold leaf or something. Anyway, I tried to fill those in with some CA...which at first seemed to work, but once I turned that back down again, the CA just looked like it had a dense spiderweb of cracks, or maybe crystal formation, or something...didn't really look all that great.
It wasn't until I started wet sanding that I noticed all the bubble holes...none of them were large, at most half a millimeter maybe, but they all captured the sanding slurry, which was a pinkish-white color with this particular blank. At first I was able to use air to blow them out, however when I went and did my final polishing with pen polish, that filled them in as well, and that stuff would not budge, even with the air pressure rather high.
I tried to clear out the polish residue with some needles. I was able to dig out the bulk, but the walls of each bubble are still the grayish-white of the polishing compound. I've tried using some water, some DNA, even tried to work a wet toothpick in there. So far, I'm not having any luck. At the very least, I think if I could get the white powdery residue out of them, they would mostly be invisible...but, I'm not sure if there is even a way to do that at this point.
I'm curious, has anyone else run into this issue? What is a good way to deal with remnant bubbles in resin blanks? I there any way to keep them from getting filled up with slurry or polishing compounds, or any of the other dust and residue we are always dealing with?
With the stardust, I also had a couple of places where the resin just chipped off, leaving a larger flake of gold leaf behind. I suspect it didn't bond to the gold leaf or something. Anyway, I tried to fill those in with some CA...which at first seemed to work, but once I turned that back down again, the CA just looked like it had a dense spiderweb of cracks, or maybe crystal formation, or something...didn't really look all that great.
It wasn't until I started wet sanding that I noticed all the bubble holes...none of them were large, at most half a millimeter maybe, but they all captured the sanding slurry, which was a pinkish-white color with this particular blank. At first I was able to use air to blow them out, however when I went and did my final polishing with pen polish, that filled them in as well, and that stuff would not budge, even with the air pressure rather high.
I tried to clear out the polish residue with some needles. I was able to dig out the bulk, but the walls of each bubble are still the grayish-white of the polishing compound. I've tried using some water, some DNA, even tried to work a wet toothpick in there. So far, I'm not having any luck. At the very least, I think if I could get the white powdery residue out of them, they would mostly be invisible...but, I'm not sure if there is even a way to do that at this point.
I'm curious, has anyone else run into this issue? What is a good way to deal with remnant bubbles in resin blanks? I there any way to keep them from getting filled up with slurry or polishing compounds, or any of the other dust and residue we are always dealing with?
