Practical Engineering | Resin Sphere Turning Experiment Failure @PracticalEngineeringChannel | Uploaded February 2015 | Updated October 2024, 5 days ago.
The turning subreddit started up their monthly challenges again. February's challenge is to turn a sphere. I've had some ideas swirling around in my head about resin and dowels, and I decided to give it a shot. The mold came together beautifully, and my estimate for the volume of resin was dead on! But the final sphere was far from attractive. Some lessons learned:
1. Charge your camera battery before any "no turning back" parts of the project.
2. Cut the tip off the dye bottle! There's a hole there already, but it's really small.
3. Pressure is necessary for casting with Alumilite Clear if your mold is complicated. Vibration is not enough to get the break all the bubbles free.
4. Dull carbide does not cut Alumilite very well.

Hopefully the video is enjoyable, even if it's not a very good tutorial on how to do this. Let me know what you think, and thanks for watching.

LINKS:
Turning subreddit: reddit.com/r/turning
Allen Stratton's Sphere Turning Tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=3lConTQ-cUw