"Mud"

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enigma309
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#41

Post by enigma309 »

Gents, this thread continues to fascinate and interest many of us who are mere observers.

A link to some copyright material which may be of interest - http://tinyurl.com/3ymsu5q


Keep up the good work
Brian

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#42

Post by Holireels »

Brian/Michael,

Good reading / information in your attachement, thanks.  Funny and not so funny, in experimenting with molding this stuff, are all the variables that affect it.  As noted in your attachment, the shellac and/or molding compound expands quite a bit during molding.  It seems to me, the platen press is primarily used to heat the material and hold the mold.  Pressure is not really required to squeeze the material into the mold shape.  Once the molds are closed and filled, the upper platen is primarily used to hold the mold together.  Expansion of the shellac/molding compound pushes back against the platen.  This characteristic makes it important to consider the die/mold design and if it will be open, partially open, or closed. 

Michael,
You might test this by heating the material in a closed section (similar to the cap off of a can of paint).  Place some molding compound into the cup and then put a small plate ontop of the molding compound and heat.  The expansion will push the small plate up considerably. 
Another interesting note, taken from the New World Encylcopedia:   
A natural polymer, shellac is chemically similar to synthetic polymers and is considered a natural plastic. It becomes part of a molding compound when mixed with wood flour and molded under heat and pressure methods, so it is classified as a thermoplastic. But old moldings made of shellac and wood flour tend to become thermoset, that is, they suffer chemical reactions over time and are no longer fusible.

The above note is important in determining the actual material of the original reels.  The pin test prescribed to test materials for its thermoset or thermoplastic qualities might not work if the above noted is true.  The pin test would be the same for vulcanized rubber and the shellac molding compound.  Probably the best way to determine the actual material would be to take a sample to a college that has Spectrometry equipment.  Based on the information known about the material of the time, this would narrow the scope for determination.  Would be cool to know the exact composition, if there was one, of atleast one sample reel side plate material.  I bet we could find atleast one fly-fishing minded professor and/or masters/Phd student that might test this out?  Did Hoagy provide a plate that could be used for that?

John Paullus

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#43

Post by mhackney »

John, I have observed the expansion too. I know from my earlier career injection molding ceramic precursors that the amount of filer compounded in with the binder (shellac in our case) contributes to strengthening, toughening AND reducing the expansion and shrinkage of the molded compound. A higher fraction of filler - glass fibers in your case or wood flour or calcium carbonate in mine, should reduce the expansion and shrinkage if enough filler can be compounded in. Would flour in particular is interesting since it has a very "rough" surface that would tend to lock the particles and binder together. I haven't had a chance to compound with my wood flour yet but hope to this evening.
I'll try the "paint can lid" mold test too. I want to make some parts!
I have had a few leads (that did not pan out) on my request from broken P&P plates to test here and on ORCA. The material Hoagy sent me are all good plates. He did offer to sacrifice one for the cause but I suggested that I try to take a small scraping in a non-obtrusive area and see if I can get a microanalysis performed on it. That is my current plan but I think Hoagy's offer might still stand if needed. Although I am no longer a practicing chemist, I have a few friends who are professors and have access to labs and analytic equipment. One lives in southern CO and he and his wife are both avid fly anglers and scientists.
It would also be interesting to see if there were any other items molded in shellac compounds in that era that were black/red marbled too. I haven't run across any but I think it is unlikely that P&P invented that idea. But who knows, they were out of the box thinkers!
Brian, some good insight in the link you posted. I meant to post it the other day when you emailed it to me the other day but forgot! The experiment they suggest of molding in a cylinder supports John's observation on expanding. The use of pressure helps minimize this. I suspect the material shrinks on cooling so the pressure might help offset this too.
regards,Michael
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#44

Post by mhackney »

John, have you seen the BlendTec blenders? I have been following them for a while since they do some great videos called "Will it Blend?". They've blended iPads, iPhones, an air soft gun, a Nike Air shoe and the list goes on! It is amazing to see what it will do to an iPhone 4 - Will it Blend? These things should make short work of pulverizing and mixing these mud compounds. I've been watching for a good used one just to have for my shop. They make 2 lines, a home line and a commercial line (the blender in the videos is the low end home model!). One finally came up (ICB-5 model) used with very low usage (each blender has a counter on how many times it was operated) and three 1 quart containers. 1 quart should be just right for doing even a large batch of mud. It should be as easy as weighing out the dry components as they come out of their jars, adding them to the blender, and blending away. Then heating to compound, break in to big chucks and blend to pulverize. 
I'll keep one of the containers to use for making smoothies and margaritas!
cheers,Michael
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#45

Post by mhackney »

Alexander Parks of the UK is given credit with inventing the first synthetic plastic in the early 1860s. He called it Parkesine and it was a precursor to celluloid. I received an email from Ian Holdsworth (from the UK Plastics Historical Society) wherein he mentions Parkesine and that it was often blended in many different colors and molded with mottled colors. In following up researching this, I came across a photo of a Parkesine fishing reel! Look at the detail on the side plate. I could find no other information on it but it is in London. I've asked Ian if he has access to it to determine the maker and date.
Image Here is another photo I just found, of all places, on the Plastics Historical Society Web site!

Image

And just to make this even more fun for me, the Parkesine Company was established in 1866 at Hackney Wick! Look at some of the products they produced.
cheers,Michael (Hackney)
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#46

Post by Holireels »

Now thats a man's man blender.  Take it in the shop, grind down a 2x4, make some gravel for the driveway, and then take inside and make the significant other a nice martinee.  I want one.....and will be looking as well.  Tks.

Cool stuff about the Parkensine.  One could easily write a book on early/historical thermoplastics and thermosets.  There is a lot of information on the net, but you have to look in odd places to find it.  I've found a lot a basic information, but not much in terms of mechanical/physical properties of most of the materials.  Or, like you noted, little about the exact formulations........for obvious reasons, back in the day.  I guess thats what makes this kinda fun trying to figure it out though. 

John

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#47

Post by mhackney »

Yes it is! I've wanted an excuse to get one for several years - since seeing that first Will It Blend video! The company's CEO is brilliant. But, the blenders are amazing too. This would take care of the processing and dry blending of materials. Compounding at elevated temperature is still a challenge I am thinking about.

The few 19th century references to shellac based molding do state that the filler is added to the molten shellac & resins. Stirring is only effective at low solids loading. These compounds have pretty high solids loading. Have you tried to melt the shellac and then "stir in" your glass fibers? I have not tried that yet with calcium carbonate or wood flour but will this week. I am not sure how it will go. Melting the blended shellac, resin and calcium carbonate was a bit tricky too though.

Maybe mixing the filler in to the molten shellac will work out. When the stuff cools, it is going to be reground also, so that will also improve the "blend" when these grains are remelted and fused.

I am waiting patiently for my vulcanizer and BlendTec blender to arrive this week!

There are several books on early plastics, with lots of information on gutta percha, ebonite & hard rubbers, Parkesine , celluloid, Bakelite and others. Ian recommended Classic Plastics by Sylvia Katz (1984, Thames & Hudson in the UK). She is England's leading author on the history of plastics. I found a copy in the UK for cheap and ordered it. Unfortunately, there is very little information on shellac based thermoplastics. I suspect this attributed more to the fact that these formulations were "common knowledge" at the time rather than a proprietary formulation. If they truly were proprietary, the inventors would have patented them like they did for gutta percha, ebonite, rubber, Parkesine, celluloid and Bakelite in my opinion. Just a thought!

cheers,
Michael
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#48

Post by Holireels »

Michael,

I tried various methods of mixing and found that pre-mixing / blending works the best, atleast for me.  The Shellac is so sticky that it was very hard to just melt and then stir in the filler material.  I ended up with clumps of filler and clumps of just shellac when trying this method.  If the material was more fluid, it might work better, but just using shellac will be pretty tough going and you will be exposing the shellac to higher temps for a longer period of time trying to mix in the filler.  It would be nice though to not have to go through two process of blending, heating, then pulverizing / grinding.  Good luck with your new toys, they should be fun to use and hopefully making messing around with this stuff a little easier. 

Mark from Art plastics messes around with and produces some other early materials as well:  Bakelite, Celluloid, and Casein. I'm not quite sure if I want to mess around with this stuff, but its interesting / neat material none the less.  I think I will buy one of the little vulcanizing presses and mess around with vulcanizing rubber and trying to color it as well once we have the "mud" figured. 

John

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#49

Post by Holireels »

Messed up on some side plates and thought rather than throw them away, I would show how I'm molding the mud into the side plate:
Image
The above picture shows the orange and black mud, mold components, front side plate, and press.  The first step in molding into the side plate is to coat the molds with dry silicon release agent.  Once dry, the side plate is placed on the lower mold:
Image

After being placed on the lower mold, then orange mud is sprinkled into the mold/side plate.  Depending on what coloration/mix of black/orange you want, the next step is to place the filler ring on top of the mold and then add black mud to the mold/side plate.  After that you can fill the mold with either black or red mud.
ImageImageImage

Once the mold is filled with mud, I used a piece of silicon cut to size and place over the mold and inserted into the filler ring. After that, I place the top mold ontop of the silicon.
ImageImage
Now the mold is filled and is ready for molding.  The mold is placed into the press and the screw is just lighty tightened.  After that the press/mold is placed on top of a heating element.
ImageImage
The mold is heated until it reaches 280 degree F.  Once it reaches 280, the mold is rotated 10 degrees left and 10 degrees right and then back to center.  Once the mold has been manipulated, it is allowed to reach 320 degrees F and then is removed from the heat source and cooled with cold water.  Once cooled the mold is seperated to reveal that back side of the side plate:
Image
I tried different amounts of black and orange and did three trials:
ImageImageImageImage
This process works pretty well, but you have to keep the mold spot less after each useage, or you will get voids. 

Last edited by Holireels on 12/14/10 22:04, edited 1 time in total.

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#50

Post by mhackney »

John, the coloration of the plates is spot on, excellent job! Philbrook & Payne would honored. 
Interesting idea on the side plate - the holes drilled through - so the plate is actually sandwiched between the front and back layers of mud. It seems that would help minimize shrinkage too. I assume the silicon mat that you are using has that grid pattern that shows on the backside of the finished plate?
My Blendtek came in on Friday and whipped up another batch of mud with wood flour, shellac and resin. This thing is perfect for granulating and mixing these materials. The wood flour filler is very interesting stuff to work with, it behaves very nicely. I started with a 2:1 wood flour:shellac/resin by weight ratio. Heating this up to blend is still a challenge but the frying pan on a hot plate with lots of stirring works. 
My vulcanizer came in yesterday. It looks to be perfect for the task! I have a crude circular mold ready to try some molding.
I'll be using zinc stearate for a mold release - this is a traditional (without the aerosol can of course!) mold release.
On mold cleaning - the one nice thing about this mud is it is soluble in alcohol. Even globs of mud stuck to a frying pan will dissolve if left soaking overnight.
Great work! I am excited to get molding now!
cheers,Michael
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#51

Post by cdmoore »

Michael, did you learn anything from Mas at Kineya as I had mentioned as a possible lead for you?  Also, was tooling around the web (home sick today) and came across this site on early fountain pens.  See the black and orange one a little bit down the page--appears to be a great deal of care taken in arranging the coloration on that one.  I wonder if there is a possible lead there, too?  Maybe some of this mud was patented?

http://www.richardspens.com/?page=xf/xf0805.htm

Chris
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#52

Post by mhackney »

Chris, no I haven't had time yet to follow up with Mas but it is on my list of things to do soon.


The link you posted gives a page error but the link is correct. You need to click on Richard's Collection on the left side panel. That takes you to the page. That is a beautiful pen. I've actually researched old pens for leads to early materials. I have done a US patent search for early patents that include the term "shellac" but haven't come up with any formulations. Ian Holdsworth is researching early British patents for me. I hope to hear from him in a few weeks.


Hope you feel better!


cheers,

Michael
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#53

Post by mhackney »

Here are some photos of the Blendtec blender I picked up. I was very happy - it looks almost unused. It came with three 1 quart containers (each has its own blade). So I can use 2 in my shop and keep 1 for the kitchen. Here it is:
Image

Here is my wood flour/shellac/resin mix blended up. This thing does a great job chopping up all the bits and pieces and mixing them together.

Image   Image

It also does a great job of grinding up the mud once it has been heated and melted together. And it makes a heckofa smoothie too!
cheers,Michael
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#54

Post by mhackney »

I had a bit of time tonight so I couldn't resist trying to make some disks. The aluminum I ordered to make my real (reel) molds has not come in yet so I made a simple press out of 1" ID aluminum tube and some rod. Here is the mold:
Image

Here is the vulcanizer I just received. It has heated top and bottom platens and a massive wheel on the press. There is even a convenient hole for a thermocouple. The second photo shows the mold loaded with mud in the press.
Image  Image

And here are the first 2 pellets I molded:
Image Image

To make the first one, I poured some very finely ground red mud in the mold. I then added few large hunks of black mud. You can see a piece of black at the upper right in the photo. I then covered the backside with more red and added the plunger. I put the mold in the press, which was preheated to 230°F and added a little pressure to make good contact with the heated platens and mud. I let this warm up for 10 minutes and then added some more pressure for a minute. Some of the mud squirted around the mold plunger. I immediately removed the mold and ran it under cold water. Once cool, the plunger was pushed out with a plastic dead blow hammer. You can see from the photo that the ends of the plungers were left as-machined. I decided to polish them for the second test pellet.
The second pellet I approached a little differently. I added finely ground red and black mud to the mold in 4 thin layers. I put the red in first. I then put the mold in the preheated press (230°F) and added a little pressure. I let it warm up for 10 minutes and then added just a little more pressure. I could feel the plunger compress the mud and again a little squirted out of the mold. I then removed the mold, ran it under cold water and removed the pellet as above. You can see from the photo (sorry it is a little out of focus) that the surface is glass like. You can see the flow pattern in the black. The mud on the right side looks like it flowed to the right. That's exactly where it leaked out of the mold! So even a little fluid movement produces the wispy pattern. This disk is about 1/16" thick. I broke it to see the fracture pattern - it was a nice straight and well defined break. And it took quite a bit of force to break it. I could see the 4 layers of black and red.
Some observations:
  • Originally I thought the iron oxide was too dark red. Now seeing a molded piece and comparing it to actual P&P plates (the ones on loan from Hoagy) the color is a dead ringer. I am very happy with that.
  • I thought that finely ground mud would just blend together and create, well, a brown colored mud! Not so, the colors really stay separate from each other and blend nicely at their edges. In the first piece where I used larger chunks of black, you can see a very clear line between the red and black with virtually no blending of the colors. Very interesting!
  • The toughness of the part - even at 1/16" thick - is quite remarkable.
  • The surface finish of the mold is critical. This mud picks up every detail of the mold.
  • I wanted to try John's 10° left and right rotation but I had no way to grab the hot tube and plunger of the mold. I will think about how to design that in to the actual mold.
That's it for now. I am very anxious to make my actual side plate mold. 
cheers,Michael
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#55

Post by mhackney »

In doing some research tonight I came across Indiarubber and Gutta Percha: A Complete Practical Treatise on Indiarubber and Gutta Percha, by Seeligmann, Torrilhon and Falconnet. It was published in 1903.
There are some very interesting pieces of equipment for blending and molding rubber. In particular, look at this vulcanizing press:
Image

Looks a lot like mine but over 100 years old!
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#56

Post by Holireels »

Michael,

Good job and nice equipment....your on the right track for sure! 

John

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#57

Post by mhackney »

My aluminum to make the mold came in today so I am hoping to get some quality time on my lathe this weekend.


One interesting thing I realized, I order most of my metals from OnlineMetals (when my local Admiral Metal's outlet doesn't have what I need). The price for a rod or tube of aluminum is almost the same! Even though the rod has much more aluminum in it. I hadn't paid attention to that before. At the outlet, I pay per pound regardless of the shape. A great deal. Unfortunately, they are completely revamping the Boston store and had very little when I stopped in today. I was hoping to get some 2 1/2 to 3" tubing but all they had was solid.


cheers,

Michael
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#58

Post by mhackney »

I'm still working on my mold but I did do some experiments formulating mud. I did a few different compositions and used 2 techniques and plan to mold a 1" x 1/8" x 4" bar of each to use in a break test.

The 2 techniques I used were
  1. "blend and melt" - the shellac and other components were mixed with the filer and blended in my Blendtec. This mixture was then melted on the burner. This is the technique that John showed originally and I used for my first batches.
  2. "melt and knead" - the shellac and other components are mixed and then melted on the burner. The filler is then kneaded in. this is very much like make bread dough.
Here are the compositions I am testing. I made a small batch of each with each of the 2 techniques listed above. The idea was to get the solids loading as high as possible. It turns out that wood flour is very finely ground. I tried using 50-50 by weight but the volume of flour to shellac was about 3:2. It was very difficult to mix or melt together. So I choose to go by volume. On the flip side, the calcium carbonate is denser than the shellac and mixing by volume also created problems, so I used weight. At the end of the day, the goal is to have a formula that can be repeated so I will convert the volume to weight. The shellac, rosin and wax were measured by weight %. I just used the red dye because I like the way it looks!
  1. pure shellac with red dye and wood flour - (50-50 by volume)
  2. pure shellac with red dye and calcium carbonate - (50-50 by weight)
  3. 80% shellac, 20% rosin with red dye and wood flour (50-50 by volume)
  4. 80% shellac, 20% rosin with red dye and calcium carbonate - (50-50 by weight)
  5. 60% shellac, 30% rosin, 10% carnauba wax with red dye and wood flour (50-50 by volume)
  6. 60% shellac, 30% rosin, 10% carnauba wax with red dye and calcium carbonate - (50-50 by weight)
Some notes:
  • Mixtures 3-4 all melted and blended nicely at a lower temp - I used 235 deg F. 1 & 2 required about 260 deg F to blend nicely.
  • Wood flour handles a lot like real flour! The mud is very dough like in consistency. You can even shape it by hand or press it on objects to make impressions. Very interesting stuff.
  • The calcium carbonate blends were much "stickier" and had a glossy sheen - just like the photos John posted with his glass filler blend.
  • Addition of more resin and also wax made mixing a lot easier since the melt was more fluid. However, the end product looks the same and when pieces are snapped by hand, they seemed relatively the same strength. A more sophisticated break test will be conducted.  
In thinking about this, the resins and wax may lend some waterproofness to the molded part too. I might try soaking some disks in water &/or alcohol and see if there is an effect.

Cheers,
Michael
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#59

Post by gespliesste »

Hey "Mud" boys what is going on?
Olaf

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#60

Post by mhackney »

Sorry for the absence! I am finally digging out of a large # of orders I received for kits and reels before AND after Christmas. Not a bad problem to have.
Anyway, I now have the material properties, color, etc worked out the way I want them. I had to buy a larger lathe in order to make molds for the side plates. John gave me a couple of good recommendations and I ended up with a Grizzly G0602 10x22. I ordered it back in Nov and it finally came a few weeks ago. It takes a bit of time to get a big tool like this set up, broken in, and ready to go but it's there now. I've also been working on a foundry to cast brass and nickel silver frames the way Philbrook & Payne made theirs. But all of this snow in New England has really slowed that down!
I'll post some more updates and photos soon.
cheers,Michael
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