Crossette stars sticking to cruciform.

[RubberRed1999]

As some may know, I recently bought a 1 crossette pump from pyroworks.us. This does NOT have a spinning cruciform.

 

Anyway, my ball mill is occupied so I decided to test it with Shimizus blue II, this has red gum and parlon in it, bound with alcohol.

 

Anyway, press it, remove it.. looking good. BUT, the inner walls of the crossette are stuck to the cruciform. This was a nightmare, a sticky, rubbery mess. Good thing alcohol cleaned it up.

 

Anyway, I now have 2 very weird comet things, nice for a test.

 

But I want functioning crossettes. Any tips on this would be very very helpful.

 

NOTE: I didnt have silicon lubricant, graphite powder or anything of the sort on hand. Please tell me if either of those will work. Or is it purely just the rubber star? Ill be making some D1 soon and hopefully that will break away better.

 

Thanks, RR

 

 

EDIT: for those looking for a nice cheap blue, I very much recommend this one, its a deep, amazing blue

Edited November 7, 2019 by RubberRed1999

[BetICouldMake1]

Welcome to the joys of crossettes. Getting them to release can be tricky. Some suggestions that may help. First, the finish on your pump may not be the greatest, so taking a little time to polish it with some buffing compound or similar product may help. How wet your comp is will play a role as well, overly wet comp will be stickier and more prone to deformation. I prefer wetting with water rather than using alcohol or acetone when pumping. There's less benefit of a fast evaporating solvent when you need so little moisture to pump stars. Clean the pump frequently when using-an old toothbrush works well. Also, the comet will expand slightly after extracting. On my crossette pump if I wait a couple seconds and then give the pump a quick bang with a dowel or against the bench I found the crossette releases easily. A very think coating of silicon may help. I tried it and it didn't seem to make a huge difference.

[MadMat]

CRC silicone mold release spray might be something to try. It is available from Amazon for a little under $14 per can. I've used it for various things and it seems to me that it would work good for rubber stars.

Edited November 7, 2019 by MadMat

[RubberRed1999]

Thanks for the replys. Ill look into silicon spray. It turned out to be a writing error, it says bind with alcohol but in actuality, red gum is a fuel. Water would have been better. The finish is decent but I probably could polish it a little more.

[fredjr]

Been a long time since I used a pump like this. But if you pull the crossette rammer BEFORE ejecting the crossette and then use a solid rammer to eject it, you will get better results. Obviously important not to twist rammer while removing it.