Sass 13 pour
Initial pour completed at 2:42pm. 20 ounces distributed into three major and several minor molds. Note the two large ones in the middle of this nice flat ¾ inch thick plexiglass.
The second pour of 8 ounces started with applying some very thick brown with a paintbrush on gandalf. And, very carefully mixing and applying thickly turquoise powder that shows the right color. The paler greens are from a few days ago with turquoise and thickener that mostly rand dwon into the crack andywayl
The second pour of 8 ounces started with applying some very thick brown with a paintbrush on gandalf. And, very carefully mixing and applying thickly turquoise powder that shows the right color. The paler greens are from a few days ago with turquoise and thickener that mostly rand dwon into the crack andywayl
The last pour included touching up a few spots where vegetation was poking through. I thought some other spots were low, but now think I need to look closer. In any case added some small ones.
Came back at 8pm to see how things wer going and it looked very good. No easily seen bubbles, not quite ready; still tacky to the touch.
Looks like the trick to putting turquoise on a staff is to make the staff level. Lots of jiggling things and checking. But finally got a nice deposit. However, to replicate that along the rest of the crack is going to take a long time. Not much epoxy, but has to be mixed on flat surface and applied with spatula, very carefully. And a jig in place so that the stick can be adjusted precisely and quickly.
And so, 15 hours later, at 6:43 the following morning, ooops! Using a fairly gentle approach, the first one I tried to get up snapped in half. I brought in tools and gently worked on a couple more before shattering another one and stopping.
sassagrass 13 pour-00022-IMG_20201212_065804
I did get the long one off in one piece, but it was mounted on a separate piece of plexiglass and here you see I was able to give it a twist and mount it. So one of the things discovered is that the pour can still be flexible after 15 hours. And I have already learned that if I take the long one out of the mount I have it in now, it will try to untwist and lay flat. The main reasons for the failure? due to the shattering behavior, I'm going to guess that the temperature during the cure was too cold. It was down around 60 when I cam in to check in the morning,. I have had some chipping like this once before and I recall that is was cold then, too. So I will try a couple of things, One is keep the room above 70 and below 80 for the whole cure. Second is to run some specific tests on surfaces and molding spray and timing of demolding.
