Slow Drying Out

Well it's been about a month since we made the solid balls of g00. As I said, it may take a while for all the acetone to dry out. I began to wonder just how long it would take, so I took a hacksaw and went at the big ball. I cut out a little wedge to get a little cross section of the drying process. As you can see in the picture, the big blob has dried out about 3/8 of an inch from the surface.



Considering that the rate of evaporation will probably slow down, I estimate that it will take about 7o years for this process to finish. That's a real seat-of-the-pants estimate. After that, I took the hacksaw to one of the smaller blobs. I sawed that sucker in half. It's interesting cutting this stuff. When you're cutting through the hard stuff, it cuts well. As you get into the center, it's more like cutting through a squid. It's arduous. Anyhow, just like the big blob, the smaller blob was still pretty acetone rich in the center. In other words, it still reeked of acetone.



So this got me to thinking about mailing off the plastic challa bread to it's maker. I hope the trace of leaking acetone fumes won't set off some alarms and send the Homeland Security guys down on my ass.

By the way, that white bucket with the red lid in the first picture has a fresh batch of melted polystyrene foam for my entertainment.

Bye for now.