Sweetgum pods

[Rob Wyatt]

We have a Sweetgum tree and every season it covers the front yard in prickly pods. This year I noticed they look a lot like the coronavirus so I collected a bunch and plan to cast and turn them. When they first fall they are hard, heavy and closed. These are all open, with large seed cavities exposed, really dry, and brittle.

Anyone worked with these before? I plan to run them through the dehydrator to make sure they are dry enough for casting. And I don't *think* I need to stabilize them first since they will be in resin. My main doubt is whether the resin will be too viscous to enter the pores and solidify the interior of the pods.

I have a couple gallon bucket full of them so I can make several tries but any advice that can save me a bad batch is appreciated.



Fortunately, those open voids appear to be only at the exterior. The inside is actually quite hard to cut into even with a new X-Acto blade.

 

[Gary Beasley]

Folks have made pen blanks from these before and they work quite well. You do need to use a pressure pot to force the resin into the pods. Stabilizing might help some to make the final blank stronger.
https://www.penturners.org/threads/which-one-pic-heavy.98149/#post-1407631

 

[Rob Wyatt]

Thanks, Gary! That's encouraging. I'll plan to stabilize and was going to use the pressure pot anyway. Can't wait to see what these look like! (Actually, I can. I have to churn through the queue of family pen requests first. )

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Good luck on your project. Here in the Deep South we call them Gumballs. Make great ammunition to fire out of a pipe gun with firecrackers. Ok way before the current attitude even worse than "You'll shoot your eye out". Parents never said a thing