# Soft in middle



## Gethenet (Mar 21, 2015)

i have been trying for sometime now to cast pipe tobacco in clear resin.
I have managed to get a few usable pieces, but on several I find the middle part of blank gets soft. I have been using pr resin, and my conclusion is maybe the tobacco still has moisture in it, and the resin is reacting to that. I do lay the tobacco out flat and let it air dry to the point it feels dry, but I'm guessing it's not.
Any opinion in this? Would Alumilite be a better resin for this process?


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## thewishman (Mar 21, 2015)

It would have to be dry for either resin. Especially the Alumilite.


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## Gethenet (Mar 21, 2015)

thewishman said:


> It would have to be dry for either resin. Especially the Alumilite.



Does moisture sound like the issue with the " softness "?


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## robutacion (Mar 22, 2015)

Gethenet said:


> thewishman said:
> 
> 
> > It would have to be dry for either resin. Especially the Alumilite.
> ...



The softness in the middle mean that, the material did not stabilize properly, *if you have stabilized it*, either from incorrect oven temperature and or time required to set which is about 90 minutes @ 90°Celsius, 200° F.
I din't think that will be absolutely necessary but, it could improve the general results...!

Tobacco, really needs to be completely moisture free and dehydrated to give you a good chance to cast right.  I only use PR so, I don't know from experience, how much better Alumilite would be but in general terms, has a better adhesion capabilities, you may get good results by using good quality clear PR, just do the best you can to dry the tobacco well...!

Good luck,

Cheers
George


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## Kenny Durrant (Mar 23, 2015)

If the resin is clear just soft I would guess it wasn't mixed well enough. If its cloudy it's moisture. I just cast my first succesful tobacco pen and it took several tries. I bought old cigars so they were plenty dry and crunchy. My biggest problem was air bleeding through the leaves.


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