Grow Your Own Guitar Pedal Finish, Chapter 2

[EBK]

I'll give future update pics their own post, I think.  I felt free to overwrite the last one because it was the same as t=0 days.

Anyway, it is definitely growing something.  Hard to tell what the crystals look like because they are only semi-opaque.

[moid]

I'm confused. When is the pedal going to take it's clothes off? This is pretty intense teasing....

On a more whimsical note, this is a really cool idea. When I was a child I was given a strange (and probably illegal for kids now) chemistry experiment called Crystal Garden which grew beautiful and rather fantastic worlds inside jam jars of water... something like this:



these were very fragile, but I wonder if they could be induced to grow between two sheets of clear perspex and then the plastic / crystal sandwich could be glued to the pedal top? For maximum complexity / awesomeness, cut a section out of the enclosure lid, out LEDS inside and place the crystal in its plastic sandwich in the hole and have it be backlit by the LEDs.

[PRR]

> a strange (and probably illegal for kids now) chemistry experiment called Crystal Garden

Apparently still K-12 legal in this 21st century:
https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/momentum/k12/june04/

Water, salt, ammonia (yum), and laundry bluing. Bluing has been out-of style in the US since chlorine, enzyme, and "brightener" products came to laundry mid-20th-century, but they still make it, and it is popular in simpler India to take the "yellow" out of washed cotton. In US look for a small bottle with grandma Stewart's picture. In UK they have Reckitt's Crown Blue Tablet. Bluing appears to be a trace of Prussian blue, what machinists use to mark steel, and apparently you can eat 10 grams a day OK. The crystals are salt, ammonia speeds evaporation, and the PB makes the crystals prettier. Food dye can be added for color.

[EBK]

Quick view from above at t=2 days:

That bubble is on the surface of the liquid, not on the enclosure.

And, from the usual angle:

(Just pretend that says "• LIVE FEED" in red letters if you still need that.  )

[EBK]

I think what I will do next is, after I pull this enclosure out of its bath (maybe another day or two), I will resaturate the solution and hang some strips of aluminum flashing in it.  That way, I can do some experiments on sealing techniques without destroying a large quantity of my alum.  I want to at least try rattle can clear coat, CA glue, and epoxy.

Update: test strips are ready to go, or more accurately, ready to grow.

[EBK]

Looks like I need to rethink this a bit....

I moved it, and the crystals slid off like sheets of ice.
Interesting oxidation of the aluminum too. 

[vigilante397]

Did you throw another box in the bath? I'm still seeing one in there on the live feed

[EBK]

It will live there forever, I suppose.   

I would need to filter out the crud from the Elmer's glue before trying again.  Will probably try some tests with the aluminum strips first to see if I can manage better adhesion.  Maybe CA glue and some of these new crystals as seeds.