What happened?????

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Monty

Monty

Group Buy Coordinator
Joined
Mar 4, 2005
Messages
8,436
Location
Pearland, Texas, USA.
I cast a rattle snake blank in Silmar 41 and used 6-7 drops of catalyst per ounce. Let it cure overnight in the house so the ambient temperature was about 70* F. Sanded the ends to square the blank by sanding using a sanding jig with a transfer punch as a guide (one that just fit the tube so I made sure there was no resin inside the tube) before turning, then turned the blank as usual, between centers without bushings. When I pressed the pen parts in, the end of the tube turned cloudy, like the PR separated from the skin/tube. The PR seemed to be a little soft, so I pulled the edge back and the PR peeled off the skin. I was actually able to peel all the PR from the skin with no apparent damage to the skin. What went wrong?
I should add that I glued the skin to the tube (which had been painted and dried over night before gluing) with thick CA and allowed it to dry/outgas overnight before casting in Silmar 41.
 
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I recently received a gallon of silmar 41 from illstreet, cast a few blanks and thinking that this resin is just not right compared to previous resin. Normally I get some bubbles in the cup when I pour it, even though I pour it slow. Almost zero bubbles this last cast. Poured the resin, put the blank in the pressure pot for 24 hours. Took the blank out and looked great, for about 7 mins. I pulled the plugs, pulled the mold away from the blank and then used a transfer punch to slide thru the mold and into the blank to raise the opposite end up out of the mold. When I did this I noticed that resin lifted from the label/tube. After 2 days, it appears to be fully cured. I also cast in 70 degree shop and used 4 drops of mekp.



Harry
 
When it gets cool, like it is now, Silmar41 can be demolded and still be soft. I'm seeing 2-3 days for them to fully cured after demolding right now. My work space temp averages 67-70 right now. I'm using 6 drops MEKP per casting. Sometimes a 7th or 8th drop sneaks in.

Also could be something from the skin that caused the separation. My initial, uninformed opinion would be off chasing from whatever thebskin was cured with maybe? Perhaps something was on the skin surface or if you used CA to hold the skin down, maybe off gasing from that caused a lift?
 
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