robutacion
Member
Hi everyone,
Since I moved to this home, I notice among from a large number of bushes, shrubs, trees, plants and off-course grass, a large shrub that was planted at the front of the house as a privacy screen to the neighbours to our left. This was planted all along the side fence right to the front gate. When we moved in, this thing was huge and in desperate need for a good trimming and at that time I didn't see any flowers but some ugly hairy type pods, through out these shrubs here and there...!
The following year in Spring time, this shrub produced some amazing flowers that started like a miniature corn comb and slowly start developing interesting long and colourful needles from the very centre of this little corn comb type steam. Looking at is as it grows, it looks like a ballerina skirt, growing in both directions (up and down) bit by bit. I got fascinated by these flowers after fully bloomed, its velvety looking colour needles with this tiny little dot on each needle'd end in a suave salsa colour green, just magnificent...!
So, every year I would cut a few of these large flowers and take them to the house for decoration. We have more turned wooden vases and others all around the house, then some shops so, find a solid base for this flowers is never a problem. We normally get one lot at the beginning of Spring (right now...!) and the other cut lot 4 or 5 weeks later before they go all brown and ugly. These old flowers take years before they separate from the shrub and rot on the ground...!
Because I didn't know exactly what these shrubs were, I call them "giant bottle brushes", but this year I decided to try something I never did, there is, attempt to pick one of these fully developed flower and apart from taken a few close up pics, before and after I cut it (some), try to find a way to "freeze it in time" there is, preserve this flower in its natural state into something that would keep it looking always like this for ever...!
So, with my 5 gallon drum of clear PR still nearly full, I got and idea. Cast it in crystal clear resin and then turn it following it long shape, leaving about 5mm of PR or so all around, polish it, make a nice wood stand for it and voila...!!!
I know, casting green plant material doesn't work but I need to see what would happen and look.
My first difficulty was to find a plastic container that wouldn't be eaten by the PR, big enough for this long flower but able to fit in the pressure pot but after some looking, I found a 4 litre ice cream container that just fitted in the pot. I put this flower in the container already inside the pot and realise that I needed a hell of a lot of PR to cover that thing and post would be wasted as was nothing to cast on either side of the flowers which only took less than half of the plastic containers so, I've got this "brilliant" idea of getting another one and 3 or 4 smaller ones jut to fill all the spaces.
So, thinking very smartly, I got all the 2 large flowers and all the other smaller ones, arranged in such way that I had all the spaces used properly, I mean looked that I did utilize all the spaces in the container really well so was time to mix and pour the resin. Using another identical container to mix the resin, I mixed about 2,5 litres thinking that would be enough so and after I had it mixed, it pour it in and the damn resin wasn't even covering half way. I realize that the flowers were been pushed up (floating) by the resin so and before I mixed any more I cut a small piece of wood to fit tight over the flowers pushing the whole thing to the bottom.
I was surprised how little the first 2,5 litre pour got me so I mixed another 1,5 litres and down it went...! covered the whole thing just so, close the pot, pressurized it and left it overnight, well was already very dark by the time I finished the whole thing anyway...!
Today, just after lunch I open the pot all excited and my first disappointment was to see some very large cracks on the resin in the face showing, I got the whole thing out of the plastic container and I nearly cried...!:frown:m the damn thing had huge cracks all over...!:redface: This was the first time I had PR cracking like this so I though, what did I do wrong...??? well, was only one thing that could make the PR crack in such way and there is excessive hardener (catalyst)...! so, where did I go wrong, I though..???
I sat down with my drop counter and my book with notes and certainly it clicked, damn...! I used twice the amount required, normally at 2% this time I'be double it...!
My disappointments weren't over as I grabbed this big "blob" of resin and took it to the light to see a little better and while was fascinating to see of those nice things casted in clear PR, I started to realise that I have done another "bubu" while I did a good job on filling all the spaces available with plant material, I never gave a second thought at the fact that, this thing when cured would be like a solid rock and I needed cut/separate all these pieces that I put in there but, they were all crossed over each other, with the 2 main flowers between other small stuff and jammed in...!
What a brilliant idea I had...!!! what was I thinking...???:frown:
Spent most of the afternoon trying to salvage what I could, particularly the 2 main flowers but that didn't happen either as the cracks were though the whole thing in some places, breaking apart as I tried to cut around it.
What a waste of 1 gallon of good PR...! I may get a couple of pieces that can be salvaged but the whole thing was a big mistake, you just cant freeze time and or make things nature created for a sort life expectancy, last longer only because they are beautiful...!:wink:
What I did found out tough is that this flowers when dry are indeed a pod and when I sliced in half one of the many I have dry in the shrub (plant) I discover something very interesting and beautiful also, some of these have been prepared this afternoon casted as pen blanks in crystal clear PR.
I picked up a couple of boxes of the dry "flowers/pods" and I'm cutting a few in different ways to cast as pen blanks and see what comes up. Tomorrow I will have the first batch (18 blanks) 12 of one type and 6 done differently, I have a few other ways that I want to try and while this PR drum has some resin, I will keep trying, I'm expecting some blanks from interesting to impressive, the truth I will soon find out...!
I can also say that I identified this shrub on a Google search and what I've got is one of over 100 Banksia species available, this one is more commonly found in Western Australia and not South Australia where I am, the biologic name is BANKSIA PRAEMORSA also known as, cut leaf Banksia.
OK, this is the story of my PR blob, results of the other castings and possibly any of the salvaged bits from the blob, will be shown in due time, in the mean time enjoy the pics and the beauty flower that I was trying freeze in time...!:wink:
Cheers
George
Since I moved to this home, I notice among from a large number of bushes, shrubs, trees, plants and off-course grass, a large shrub that was planted at the front of the house as a privacy screen to the neighbours to our left. This was planted all along the side fence right to the front gate. When we moved in, this thing was huge and in desperate need for a good trimming and at that time I didn't see any flowers but some ugly hairy type pods, through out these shrubs here and there...!
The following year in Spring time, this shrub produced some amazing flowers that started like a miniature corn comb and slowly start developing interesting long and colourful needles from the very centre of this little corn comb type steam. Looking at is as it grows, it looks like a ballerina skirt, growing in both directions (up and down) bit by bit. I got fascinated by these flowers after fully bloomed, its velvety looking colour needles with this tiny little dot on each needle'd end in a suave salsa colour green, just magnificent...!
So, every year I would cut a few of these large flowers and take them to the house for decoration. We have more turned wooden vases and others all around the house, then some shops so, find a solid base for this flowers is never a problem. We normally get one lot at the beginning of Spring (right now...!) and the other cut lot 4 or 5 weeks later before they go all brown and ugly. These old flowers take years before they separate from the shrub and rot on the ground...!
Because I didn't know exactly what these shrubs were, I call them "giant bottle brushes", but this year I decided to try something I never did, there is, attempt to pick one of these fully developed flower and apart from taken a few close up pics, before and after I cut it (some), try to find a way to "freeze it in time" there is, preserve this flower in its natural state into something that would keep it looking always like this for ever...!
So, with my 5 gallon drum of clear PR still nearly full, I got and idea. Cast it in crystal clear resin and then turn it following it long shape, leaving about 5mm of PR or so all around, polish it, make a nice wood stand for it and voila...!!!
I know, casting green plant material doesn't work but I need to see what would happen and look.My first difficulty was to find a plastic container that wouldn't be eaten by the PR, big enough for this long flower but able to fit in the pressure pot but after some looking, I found a 4 litre ice cream container that just fitted in the pot. I put this flower in the container already inside the pot and realise that I needed a hell of a lot of PR to cover that thing and post would be wasted as was nothing to cast on either side of the flowers which only took less than half of the plastic containers so, I've got this "brilliant" idea of getting another one and 3 or 4 smaller ones jut to fill all the spaces.
So, thinking very smartly, I got all the 2 large flowers and all the other smaller ones, arranged in such way that I had all the spaces used properly, I mean looked that I did utilize all the spaces in the container really well so was time to mix and pour the resin. Using another identical container to mix the resin, I mixed about 2,5 litres thinking that would be enough so and after I had it mixed, it pour it in and the damn resin wasn't even covering half way. I realize that the flowers were been pushed up (floating) by the resin so and before I mixed any more I cut a small piece of wood to fit tight over the flowers pushing the whole thing to the bottom.
I was surprised how little the first 2,5 litre pour got me so I mixed another 1,5 litres and down it went...! covered the whole thing just so, close the pot, pressurized it and left it overnight, well was already very dark by the time I finished the whole thing anyway...!
Today, just after lunch I open the pot all excited and my first disappointment was to see some very large cracks on the resin in the face showing, I got the whole thing out of the plastic container and I nearly cried...!:frown:
m the damn thing had huge cracks all over...!:redface: This was the first time I had PR cracking like this so I though, what did I do wrong...??? well, was only one thing that could make the PR crack in such way and there is excessive hardener (catalyst)...! so, where did I go wrong, I though..???I sat down with my drop counter and my book with notes and certainly it clicked, damn...! I used twice the amount required, normally at 2% this time I'be double it...!
My disappointments weren't over as I grabbed this big "blob" of resin and took it to the light to see a little better and while was fascinating to see of those nice things casted in clear PR, I started to realise that I have done another "bubu" while I did a good job on filling all the spaces available with plant material, I never gave a second thought at the fact that, this thing when cured would be like a solid rock and I needed cut/separate all these pieces that I put in there but, they were all crossed over each other, with the 2 main flowers between other small stuff and jammed in...!
What a brilliant idea I had...!!!
what was I thinking...???:frown:Spent most of the afternoon trying to salvage what I could, particularly the 2 main flowers but that didn't happen either as the cracks were though the whole thing in some places, breaking apart as I tried to cut around it.
What a waste of 1 gallon of good PR...! I may get a couple of pieces that can be salvaged but the whole thing was a big mistake, you just cant freeze time and or make things nature created for a sort life expectancy, last longer only because they are beautiful...!:wink:
What I did found out tough is that this flowers when dry are indeed a pod and when I sliced in half one of the many I have dry in the shrub (plant) I discover something very interesting and beautiful also, some of these have been prepared this afternoon casted as pen blanks in crystal clear PR.
I picked up a couple of boxes of the dry "flowers/pods" and I'm cutting a few in different ways to cast as pen blanks and see what comes up. Tomorrow I will have the first batch (18 blanks) 12 of one type and 6 done differently, I have a few other ways that I want to try and while this PR drum has some resin, I will keep trying, I'm expecting some blanks from interesting to impressive, the truth I will soon find out...!
I can also say that I identified this shrub on a Google search and what I've got is one of over 100 Banksia species available, this one is more commonly found in Western Australia and not South Australia where I am, the biologic name is BANKSIA PRAEMORSA also known as, cut leaf Banksia.
OK, this is the story of my PR blob, results of the other castings and possibly any of the salvaged bits from the blob, will be shown in due time, in the mean time enjoy the pics and the beauty flower that I was trying freeze in time...!:wink:
Cheers
George
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