Am I the only one out there that has to find their own way to do everything? I've spent close to $200 to avoid spending $30 on premade scales. This must be a sickness.
Nope. I haven't spent as much on this as you, but I've made a few different blocks over the last few days.
I also don't care for the color of the resin, although it looks reasonable with the yellow burlap.
I've found Evercoat epoxy resin pigments to work quite well. I've got green, yellow, red and white. They all but totally get rid of the ugly color. As long as you can find a color pigment that you like, I recommend them.
Here's some burlap with green pigment, and some without.
I did some with red pigment a little while ago and it came out a nice brick red. I used red shop towels. I'll try to remember to get a pic. I'm going to try the white later. That one has me curious.
Also made some burlap pin stock with uncolored resin to use with the green burlap. Should be a nice contrast.
Edit- btw, I have heard that bar top stays tacky, so I'm not surprised at your results. Is the West Systems the G-Flex? Thought it was something else. In any case, their product is one I plan to try.
Shadetree (what Fiddleback uses) is indeed very expensive for what you get, or that's how it seems. I too thought I could match it for less. I'm beginning to think that I was wrong. His product looks to have no bubbles or voids, can't imagine he'd sell much if it did. The thing about burlap, from what I've seen anyway, is that the large areas with no fabric are very effective at trapping air. Pressure alone doesn't seem to fix this (big surprise), so I'd guess he's using vacuum in some way. I'll figure it out in time (unless I get bored), but in the meantime, for my own purposes, finishing the scales with a topcoat of CA or a little resin should fix it. CA is probably a better candidate because it's so thin. The resin may be just thick enough that it won't fill the pits. Anyway, while Shadetree Custom Laminates is expensive, he's gotta cover materials and whatever he spent on R&D.
Another side note. A lot of people say that the fiberglass resin laminate isn't very durable. I disagree. Maybe not as durable as micarta, but I have some home made (canvas) from several years ago and it's held up to time, water and wd40 very well. I use it to make sanding blocks and have seen zero degradation. I can't make too many claims about it's strength as I haven't really tested it to destruction, but I've used canvas micarta from the knife supply places and, while different, the home made stuff seems to be a good product on its own merit. I believe that there are going to be crappy examples, and excellent examples of non-phenolic laminates as that is just the nature of home made anything. Get it right though and it is good stuff.
Edit2-
Here's the brick red "shop towel" stuff.
You can see the resin color on the edges in the pic. I haven't ground down the excess yet. It pretty much matches the cloth, although I've noticed these towels bleed red so that may have further colored the resin. I think this will be a very durable chunk. It takes some effort to saw! There's still wax on the surface in the pic too so that'll have to be thoroughly cleaned. Acetone works well for this. Of course that's only an issue if your contouring leaves any surface area. I (figure 8) sand the block on sandpaper over granite to get it dead flat.
:thumbup:
