I started having trouble a few months back were my blanks will not polish up. Can too much pigment do that?
I you Alumilite Clear Slow. Cast at 50 lbs of pressure. Resin is around 95-100 when I pour.
I let set the blanks on the shelf for a couple months then turn. They turn really nice but to get any kind of shine I have to apply CA.
Any ideas?
Thanks
So, MicroMesh is generally the go-to answer for sanding and polishing up resins, CA finishes, etc. About, oh, man, maybe it was nearly two years ago now, someone mentioned Zona Paper on these forums. I picked up a package of Zona paper back then, and have now switched to it entirely from MM. I find that Zona has a better and more effective grit than MM. It comes in these 8x11 sheets, and I've been trimming these little 3/4x3/4 squares from strips of it since I bought the pack, and i still have a little left. I always use a new set of squares for each blank. I will sand with a few rougher grids using normal wet/dry Nortons paper, (i.e. 600, 800), then switch to the Zona, and finish with that. Green is the lowest Zona grit, 30 microns, and then gray, 15 microns, I may skip those two, depends on how prior sanding went and what scratches may remain. I sand all wet.
When you go through all the Zona grits, you go from 30 microns at the coarsest, down to just ONE micron at the finest. Zona paper alone does an amazing job giving you a nice, shiny, smooth finish on any resin, as far as my experience has gone so far. It should be noted that even when the grits are the same numerically or in terms of microns, the nature of a grit is not always the same. These are hard crystals of one material or another, and they don't all have the same physical structure. Some grits cut better than others, or just differently than others. MicroMesh is a good example of a very even, consistent grit in almost a grid-like pattern (according to the manufacturer.) Zona feels more like a sharp grit, but the way its grit breaks down and enters a wet slurry, is part of how it works, and its grit works really well when wet and in a slurry (which is different than how MM works, in my experience, as the MM grit is very well embedded in the coating of the MM fabric). Oh, and that is another factor...MM sheets and Zona sheets are more of a fabric-like base, rather than a paper or cardstock or foam base, and that also plays a roll in how the sandpaper works.
Alumilite does seem to be more of a challenge than most, and I've been quite intrigued by John U.'s use of GluBoost as finish on Alumilite. I am going to have to give that a try soon here, and see if it makes it easier to get that super shiny finish. I have wondered about the longevity if just leaving Alumilite as the surface finish...maybe a GluBoost finish would help with that. Even if I used GB as a finish on Alumilite, I would still use Zona paper through 1 micron to get a real nice smooth, clean surface before applying GB.
