Hopefully a Mistake I will only make once...

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KMCloonan

KMCloonan

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Joined
Jun 13, 2017
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Round Lake, Illinois
I saw an earlier post from an IAP member who made a pen using moss he picked up at Walmart. I thought that was pretty cool, so the next time I was at Walmart, I headed for the craft aisle, and sure enough, I saw some dried Spanish Moss. I bought a bag of the moss for about $3 and brought it home. The stuff seemed pretty dry - it crumbled in my hand - So I put some in a vertical casting tube and poured Alumilite clear slow over it and stuck it in the pressure pot overnight. When I got up in the morning, I opened the pressure pot, and was instantly disappointed - mostly in myself - for not taking the extra time to put the moss in a small oven to dry it thoroughly.

The next evening I put some more of the moss in a small foil pan and put it in my toaster oven at 150F for about a half hour. I swear - steam came out of the oven the moss had so much moisture in it.

Pictures below are of the non-dried moss and the dried moss pours. Can you guess which is which? Lesson learned. (I should have known better in the 1st place)

IMG_2645.JPG IMG_2644.JPG IMG_2643.JPG
 
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I actually have some of this stuff in my workshop with intentions of trying exactly what you did. Thanks for posting and letting us know about the moisture. I like you, assumed it was very dry. Now I know.
 
Drewby108 said:
I don't know. That mistake actually looks kinda cool to me. Gives it a "murky depths" kinda feel.

I'd turn it on a spare tube (unless you're a kitless crafter) just to see how it comes out.
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For grins, I have some spare 8mm tubing I picked up for the exacto knife project - I will turn both blanks on 8mm tubes, but I do not hold high hopes that the moisture-laden blank will even remotely end up being something I would want to pass along to a friend or customer. I'll post pics for both when I am done.
 
KMCloonan said:
For grins, I have some spare 8mm tubing I picked up for the exacto knife project - I will turn both blanks on 8mm tubes, but I do not hold high hopes that the moisture-laden blank will even remotely end up being something I would want to pass along to a friend or customer. I'll post pics for both when I am done.
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Sounds good.
 
For what it's worth, I turned both blanks (one with non-dried moss, and the other with dried moss). The results were unexpected, and overall disappointing. As a refresher, below are the two moss blanks I cast. The one on the left the moss was not pre-dried, the one on the right, the moss was pre-dried before casting.

IMG_2643.JPG
Here is a close up of both blanks
IMG_2644.JPG IMG_2645.JPG

The blank with the dried moss looked so cool, I had high hopes for the finished blank. Nope.
IMG_2730.JPG
The blank looked like I had a sticky tube and I rolled it around in grass clippings. So many bald spots. Not salvageable.

On the other hand, the blank made with non-dried moss turned out a bit less embarrassing, but still not great.
IMG_2732.JPG
There are still enough bald spots that the hobby knife I made will never leave my shop, but it looks a lot better than the pre-dried blank.

I think I need to find a different moss that has less air space between strands/branches/leaves. Or, maybe I stick with segmenting. :)
 
I thought the finished turn on the wet blank would keep some of the milkiness. Both turnings surprised me a bit with the end result.
 
KMCloonan said:
For what it's worth, I turned both blanks (one with non-dried moss, and the other with dried moss). The results were unexpected, and overall disappointing. As a refresher, below are the two moss blanks I cast. The one on the left the moss was not pre-dried, the one on the right, the moss was pre-dried before casting.

View attachment 339680
Here is a close up of both blanks
View attachment 339681 View attachment 339682

The blank with the dried moss looked so cool, I had high hopes for the finished blank. Nope.
View attachment 339683
The blank looked like I had a sticky tube and I rolled it around in grass clippings. So many bald spots. Not salvageable.

On the other hand, the blank made with non-dried moss turned out a bit less embarrassing, but still not great.
View attachment 339685
There are still enough bald spots that the hobby knife I made will never leave my shop, but it looks a lot better than the pre-dried blank.

I think I need to find a different moss that has less air space between strands/branches/leaves. Or, maybe I stick with segmenting. :)
Click to expand...
although I agree the air holes are vexing overall I quite like the look of that
 
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