A coworker's wife used to work at the Lays plant in Casa Grande, AZ. He repeated the stories about watching for rabbits in the trainloads of incoming potatoes.
Evidently rabbits look like potatoes to the picking machines.
But they make an awful mess when they hit the slicer.
-- Nobody Special
Updates:
1) It's transfast powder, not transtint. I'm not sure how different they are, but the jar doesn't mention dissolving in alcohol at all.2) A piece left in alcohol-dissolved transfast overnight then sliced showed little to no pigment penetration (approx 19 hrs). Maybe I'll get out the camera and put together a page with the data points here. Several other pieces are still soaking.
3) I got a vacuum pump off craigslist today and after too many trips to the BORG (I hate buying brass fittings there) got a pickle jar dropped to where the blocks bubbled and sank into the alcohol-dissolved transtint (liquid this time) dye. (I don't have guages, so I don't know what in/Hg it was at). Updates to follow tomorrow. I'll have to see how well the jar holds vaccuum - so far I had to tighten down the fittings a couple of times. Should have taped the threads, but was in a hurry.
-- Nobody Special
Transfast is soluble in water. TransTint liquid is soluble in both water and alcohol.
Thought so. Thanks for confirming it.
Although the green did appear to dissolve in alcohol. Perhaps it only suspended in the alcohol instead of dissolving.
Of course, now I've got to go repeat my penetration test with transtint dissolved in water under vaccuum.....
Maybe in a few weeks when I'm not booked solid.
-- Nobody Special
Update at 3hrs of soak under vaccuum. Pulled one piece out and cut off a corner at a diagonal. In 3 of the directions there was 1/8" or more (in one case probably 1/4") of penetration by the dye. On the last side there wasn't much. But since the block was pretty small, it would probably have been dyed throughout in a few more hours.
I put its partner back in along with some of my stopper blanks, pulled the vaccuum back down and will check them in the morning.
-- Nobody Special
Hope you post your results! As I said before, I have soaked in dye solution, but never vacuumed. I have a nice Gast that is not doing anything at this time. This could be interesting.
Robert
You have mail!
I hope.
Let me know here if you didn't get anything. It is 1:20 am CST at the time of this post.
Robert
"Picking machines"? Potatoes grow underground, they're dug, not picked. Heres one kind of potato digger, complete with videos
Even if there is a rabbit in the field, I can't see it sticking around when one of those things is coming down the row.
Not saying that no rabbit ever got caught in the potato harvest, but it would be pretty rare.
I suspect he was spinning you a yarn.
Given the poisonous nature of the potato foliage, it is a good thing to plant rows around a garden with rabbit problems. My problems are with deer, so I plant the onions, shallots and garlic out on the edge.
Snakes in hay bales can be a real thrill, I can tell you that.
Got it. Did you get my reply?
After ~12-13 hrs I pulled the 2nd piece. Dyed throughout except for some areas that were probably just due to it being a burl.
The stopper pieces I had in there were lighter than the commercial pieces inside, but so far I've not turned through the dye.
-- Nobody Special
Yep. Just got back in (Sunday night) and will put a couple of ideas over to you in the morning.
Robert
Another data point: about 24 hours for a block ~1.5" thick and 2.25" square. As far as I can tell it was saturated throughout- even after drying for 24 hours. Turned real nicely and has better color than the
13 hour pieces. Still nowhere as vibrant as the commecial ones, but good color.Maybe in a few weeks I'll try to use slow curing resin so the dye has something to keep it in once things dry.
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