Hi everyone,
I am new here but I am not so new to making things round on my lathe. About 2 years ago I got into casting my own pen blanks and bottle stoppers and such. Shortly after a demand surfaced for my casts and it has slowly grown. Eventually I started getting special requests for different sizes and one of those was for Pot calls and Trumpet Calls. I made a few and they went well so I went ahead and made some custom molds for my casts and ran with it. I work with someone else who sells my blanks on Ebay and some of you have bought some of my blanks from him be it Stabilized Buckeye Burl or my Cast blanks.
Needless to say I take great pride in what I do. It is my de-stress time after work. All the wood I use is cleaned by hand, stored to dry, Kilned, cleaned again, trimmed to fit the molds and cast in one of my pressure pots under 80psi. Many of the casts I do are very complex and time consuming and it has taken me some time to get them right. I offer a a variety of blanks and I am always looking for something new to cast, so if you see something you want in resin let me know, I am not scared. I don't have any pics of turnings I would feel right sharing because they are not mine but you have likely seen some of my Cholla Cactus, Acorn Caps and my new Sweetgum Ball pots turned by Mike Yingling. I do custom orders and prefer it because trying to mix colors for something like calls is very difficult because everyone likes something different and these calls cost too much to make to just stock up 50 different ones.
About the blanks. I call my blanks Yin-Yang which pretty much is bringing two dissimilar item together in harmony. I think that is what the blanks do.
About the resin. Typically when you see castings that are in Polyester Resin (PR). I do not use PR, it is brittle and will not survive a fall off the counter. I use Alumilite Urethane Resin. It is a 2 part resin that is tricky to work with but provides a product superior to that of PR. PR has a tendency to shrink and could pull away from the material cast in the resin, Alumilite does not shrink. PR is far more fragile than Alumilite. Alumilite can be tossed in the air and it may ding but will likely survive the fall, PR you would not find all of the pieces. Alumilite recommends you cast at a minimum of 40psi but I do mine at 80psi because I cast some pretty odd shapes and a lot of air gets trapped in the castings. Even at 80psi a bubble or two is possible but will be much smaller than if cast at 40psi and can typically be fixed using a little CA.
Stabilizing, I use the TurnTex Cactus Juice stabilizing. I have gone through Gallons of resin and stabilized all kinds of woods with great success. I don't typically do stabilizing for folks but I have, I just got the system to cast my own blanks.
What do I cast?
For Pots I cast Cholla Cactus, Sweetgum Balls, Acorn Caps, Pine Cones and Burl Bits.
For Trumpets I do Burl Live Edge, Wormy Wood, Burl Bits. I don't really make any of the other casts for trumpets because they are porous and will bleed air. I have made them and it can be done but the turner would really have to take some steps to sure up and seal the material.
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about my castings or about your own castings. I an not a guru but I love to share what I have learned and my goal is not to stop others from casting but to provide for those that have no interest in doing it on their own. I have actually lost customers that started casting on their own an I helped them do it.
I have posted a few call blanks in the Misc Classifieds. Take a look and let me know your thoughts. I do custom orders and have a color chart that you can pick your own colors and material and I will cast it for you.
Link to my classified ad.
http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,32054.0.html
