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Resin Casting

Dying burl
Author Last Post
5/17/2021 9:56 AM
Beautiful!  It's almost more interesting with both the color and the natural wood.  I love it.
Jody
5/16/2021 7:05 PM
So my experiment worked about 89-90%. Dye made it through but maybe not as penetrating as possible with a vacuum chamber.   However dried and cast without trouble.   Here are a few pics.  Thanks all for the help and suggestions. 



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5/13/2021 6:43 PM

When you cast into alumalite the wood has to be super dry as in more then air dried. You should bake the pieces in a toaster oven for a while at 140 degrees to get all the moisture out of it. If you watched my video on filling the voids in the hollow form when i did the shallow pour to seal the hole the wood was not dry enough and the alumalite foamed up a little bit. What i did not show is that i spent half an hour with a heat gun and infrared thermometer heating the wood up around where i was going to pour until the inside hit 140. I made the mistake once of casting without drying past air dry. the alumalite was dyed orange and the inside of my pressure pot looked like an orange cream sickle exploded.
5/13/2021 10:13 AM
Tom and all 

Thanks.  I saw those videos and cheaper for experimenting currently is my goal.   Yesterday I did straight dye and it wicked up the wood and I let it dry in the sun  today I have Artisan dies with denatured alcohol set up for my 2nd part and have the pieces submerged.    I am going to let them sit then prob tomorrow pull them and let the sun dry them out.   Hopefully the color bleeds in fully.  It’s all fun and I am hopeful.    I love the dye stabilized ones that are out there.  I was just not ready yet for the vacuum and cactus juice.  

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5/13/2021 9:20 AM

Jesse

A few years ago, before I got into Cactus Juice, I fooled around dying woods with RIT clothing dye.  I mixed it up according to a You Tube video which I have since lost and put a few pieces into a vacuum chamber and treated it as I would have Cactus Juice--but I did not dry it in an oven--just let it air dry.

I didn't use any burls, just some scraps I had laying around.

It seemed to work but I never pursued it.  Switched to Cactus Juice instead since there was a lot more info on how to use it.   I used the chunks in my resin bowl which were cast in Alumilite.

You may want to try this since RIT dye is a helluva lot cheaper than Cactus Juice.  I don't know how permanent the color would be and if it might wear off or bleed.

I found these two videos but am not sure if either was the one I used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP27fKnU0IY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvu5zrIFtz0

Give it a shot and let us know how it works.

Good luck,

Tom Puskar

On 5/12/2021 4:48 PM, Resin Casting wrote:
5/13/2021 9:18 AM
I'm curious how this will work out & I'd appreciate it if you keep us (me) posted on your experience. I still haven't gotten myself setup for casting but this is along the lines of what I want to do - so I'm super interested in your experiments.  I'll live vicariously through you for now ;)
Jody
5/12/2021 10:03 PM
Yes I am trying to tint or dye the wood before casting to hopefully get some additional  color once I turn down the blank.   Experimenting I suppose.  

I have alcohol dye and dna as Bill says below.  So hopefully in the next few days i can dye a piece and then see what happens.  I have some burl wood that is very dry but not anything special so I think color would help.  Just trying new things to add that pizzazz to some pens, knife handles, or what not. 


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5/12/2021 8:20 PM
I am not sure what you are asking - here is why

Once wood is stabilized, it really is not able to be dyed. If you are going to cast wood, it also doesn't need to be stabilized. 

If you are planning to dye a wood blank and then cast it, you must use alcohol based dyed, as Alumilite and water DO Not get along. Water makes the alumilite foam like crazy.

You could dye the wood with Transtint diluted with Denatured Alchohol, set it out to dry for a few days, then cast it. The alcohol should have displaced the moisture.

Did I understand it correctly?
5/12/2021 7:43 PM

Jesse – I’m sure it can be done.  But you will have to let the blanks dry for a while after dying them.  Assuming you are using and alcohol based dye, you can always dilute the dye with DNA then the alcohol should evaporate relatively quickly.  At the Wood show a few years ago I saw a person drawing tangle patterns on wood that had been dyed pink and then turned into a shaving brush handle.  I do not think the wood had been stabilized.

 
5/12/2021 4:47 PM

I was curious if anyone has dyed the burl for pen blanks etc without cactus juice. I am hoping to dye some blanks to then cast with alumilite to make some hybrid blanks


I am not so keen on having to put a toaster oven to cure the resin in my garage at the moment with space constraint as it is (not to mention my mess).


thoughts?
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