"worthless wood" problems

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spitfire

spitfire

Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
417
Location
bloomsburg,pa.
Ok, I wanted to make some turkey call blanks with half wood half PR. What I did was take a 4" circle(blank) and cut it almost as if to make it into a ying yang shape. I put it into my mold poured in my PR and put it in my pressure pot. The problem is I don't seem to be getting a good adhesion with the PR to the wood. If I was to hold the wood portion and smack the PR portion off my workbench I'm sure it would seperate. Is this common or am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be great. Thanks Jason
 
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Yep I did cast under pressure, 50 pounds of pressure overnight. The wood was Ash so i wouldn't think that would be the culprit in this case but you do make a good point for future castings to beware of the oily wood. Could it have anything to do with to much/to little hardner?
 
it's possible you might've used too much hardener and it gelled before it penetrated the wood
how much is too much? I dunno. experiment and let us know
 
Well, sometimes I get a little impatient and it doesn't start to gel quick enough for me so I add a little more so it is hard to tell. I think I will break off the PR from the wood use it for pen blanks and try again. If I can get this to work it is going to make some really sweet turkey calls. Thanks for the advice Kris.
 
I only use Alumilite so I can not definitively answer your question since you are using PR. That said, as you know, I came up with the worthless wood concept and have done thousands of WW cast with all kinds of woods. I have not had any problems whatsoever with oily woods not working and I cast mescalbean which is one of the oiliest woods I have ever seen.

Remember, PR shrinks quite a bit and it may be pulling away from the wood. The larger the PR area, the more shrinkage you will get. Pen blanks have very little area compared to what I think you are doing. Also, you might try heating the wood in a toaster oven at 180 degrees or so for an hour. That seemed to help me with some issue I had when I was first developed the process.
 
So I would heat the wood before puring in my PR? What if I were to drill holes into the side of the wood where the PR would meet it to act as a dowel kinda of thing to help it adhere to the wood? I think I will try that as well.
 
After giving more thought to this, I still think your problem is the PR shrinkage. The PR shrinks and the wood does not. That will cause it to lose bond with the wood. Heating will not help any in that regard. The holes might but I doubt it since PR is also brittle and a little tiny "dowel" would just break when the PR shrinks. I may be way off in left field on this so don't take it as gospel!
 
So I am assuming if this is something that I really wanted to do I should look into getting some Alumilite. Do you have a good source for Alumilite?
 
spitfire said:
So I am assuming if this is something that I really wanted to do I should look into getting some Alumilite. Do you have a good source for Alumilite?
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Call Alumilite at 800-447-9344 and talk to Mike. He is the VP and is the one that I worked with when I creating cactus pen idea. He knows his stuff and will help you out. Tell him you are a member here and that I told you to ask for him.
 
Also, I don't know that you have to look into getting Alumilite but I do know that Alumilite will work for what you want to do. If you want more info, feel free to shoot me a PM and I will send you my phone number and we can talk a little easier.
 
PR will shrink but I have made a number of worthless wood blanks and also Picasso blanks with PR. I have a toaster oven that I heat the blanks in the mold to 150 for an hr. and cut down on the drops of activator to 2 drops per once.. The quicker the pr sets it seems the more it shrinks.
 
Jason, no I heat for an hour and then while the mold and wood is still hot (warm) I add the PR and then into the pot @ 45lbs. Remember that the PR is heated by the activator and the mold and wood are warm so use less MEK or the PR will jell to quick and not penatrate the wood.
spitfire said:
Roy,
So you heat the blanks in the mold then after an hour you pour in your pr then put it in the pressure pot?
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