Mosaic pins: A question about expoxy

Crayola

Crayola

Joined
Sep 23, 1999
Messages
3,831
Howdy!! I'm getting ready to fire up my grinder, as the semester is almost at a close for me. I have a question about mosaic pins though.

With the ones I've made in the past I've dumped half of a tube of Devcon into little containers like film containers and sucked it up the tube. I notice, however, that I waste a lot of epoxy doing it that way. Any tips??

------------------
"Come What May..."
 
I have been doing the same thing and just estimate how much the particular design will take. I always end up with more than I can use. I have been keeping and storing brass, copper and steel filings. Really have no idea why, but thought it would be a good idea to mix those remnants with the left over epoxy, pop it out of the plastic cup and keep them. Thought originally that I could use those for inlays, bolsters or something. They look too good to throw away, but I have likely just figured out a fancy way to store excess epoxy and filings. Let us know if you do come up with a method. I did find that a baloon over the end of the piece your sucking on can prevent ingesting the stuff. Remember to practice safe expoxy sucking. Good luck.
biggrin.gif
Terry
 
That is the only way I know to do long batches of pins.You can do them in shorter lengths and just fill the yube up and then pit the pins in and let the excess bleed out over the top.Either way you are going to wast some epoxy.
Bruce

------------------
Bruce Evans Handcrafted Knives
The soul of the Knife begins in the Fire!!!!!
Member of,AKTI#A000223 and The American Bladesmith Society
asmallpicofbruceforforums.jpg
 
I tried sucking epoxy into the tubes and didn't like it. Instead, I use a different and much faster method.

Assemble the pin without epoxy, either a 6" or 12" length. Then pull all but 1" out of the tube and liberally butter that with epoxy, using a popsicle stick as a tool.

When the exposed part is heavily buttered, slowly push the rods back into the tube. The tube will cut off the excess epoxy, so hold the tube over a container while doing this.

Then push the rods 1" out the other end and butter that end. Push the rods back in and you're done. If you have been really liberal with your epoxy buttering, there will be very few air pockets in the tube.

This method works fine as long as you are using solid rods to fill the tube. It does not work if you are using little tubes inside the main tube. (It doesn't get epoxy in the little tubes.)

Any method of making mosaic pins will waste some epoxy. I buy epoxy a quart at a time for about $30, so wasting a teaspoon of epoxy only costs me a few cents.

 
I was hoping you'd chime in Chiro75!

Blind Dog: I make mosaic pins the Chiro75 way!! I bougnt some tubing at the hardware store and I superglue it to the pin and use it as a straw for sucking. I don't want to ever taste epoxy!! Then again, if epoxy gets on your teeth can cavities get in there??? I'd better not try!

I'll just jeep doing things the way I've been doing them. When I get some more disposable $$ I may go get a vacuum pump thingy. It is a quick way to make pins I hear. If you don't know what I'm talking about, e-mail Robert Dockrell - he suggested it to me. rdblad@telusplanet.net is his e-mail addy.

------------------
"Come What May..."
 
It never pays to just sit down and make one or two pins. While doing it, you might as well make a bunch at the same day. You clean up less often that way! I do it the same way Cjensema does. I've worked where they make that stuff. You don't even want to breath the fumes!

(Yeah, as a kid, we used to ride our bikes behind the mosquito fog truck, too!)

C Wilkins
 
To expand on the vacuum pump thingy.
smile.gif

Its just a manual gear oil suction pump. Tape a tube of pins into the pick up tube, put the other end into a container of epoxy. Pull the handle all the way out and lock it into position and it forms a vacuum that pulls the epoxy up the tube. May take a while or even two or three pulls depending on how stiff your epoxy is. I cut mine a bit with acetone.
Crayola your givin away my tricks again.
biggrin.gif


------------------
Robert
Flat Land Knife Works
rdblad@telusplanet.net
http://members.tripod.com/knifeworks/index.html

[This message has been edited by R Dockrell (edited 04-24-2001).]
 
Here's another one of Robert's tricks:

When making peanut butter and jam sandwiches (and I assume that you always make 2 at a time) use a bowie to spread the goodies onto the bread. Load a 9" bowie up with peanut butter and you can load up two pieces of bread at the same time. Load the other side of the bowie with jam, spread, and presto! Faster than pouring cereal into a bowl!!

I won't even begin to tell you Robert's trick for that...
smile.gif


------------------
"Come What May..."
 
A friend of mine uses syringes to inject the epoxy into the pins.
I don't make that many at a time and just glue them up in handle lengths, butter and stick em together.

------------------
Sola Fide
 
Gee, thanks for letting the cereal trick out of the bag Robert! I've gotten 32 calls from forumites to come over and sweep up Cheerios!

------------------
"Come What May..."
 
There is an often overlooked way of doing this. When I worked for Gulfstream building GV-SPs we used alot of epoxy. We had special setups. It consisted of a two chamber syringe with a mixing nozzle. You fill one chamber with colored epoxy and the other with colored hardener. You can get these setups from aircraft tool suppliers for cheap. Simply insert your pins into the tube and pump in the epoxy. The mixing nozzle does all the work. The great thing is, next to no loss. I have seen prefilled units at Home Depot, but they are clear and I am not sure if you could get any color into them.

R.W.Clark
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top