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| Lemon and lime slices treated in glycerin for one week |
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Embalming Fruit Slices Update
[continuation from here]
A week's immersion in glycerin changes a fruit. I observed some crenation and some color fading -- unacceptable for Plastic Realities. I already knew that raw, untreated fruit is incompatible with my resin, so my next thought was to soak them in glycerin just long enough to dehydrate the surface. I wanted to press forward with some resin casting experiments and so I set up a series of comparative experiments: raw, untreated fruit; 1 hour-treated fruit, and the 1-week treated fruit. I should know the results by morning.
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10 comments:
What if you treat the whole fruit first and then slice?
What about putting dye in the glycerin. It might differentially be attracted to various sections, i.e., it might not penetrate the white.
@ampersand: Soaking the whole fruit might work, but I think would take longer. The skin/rind is a pretty good natural seal against most everything.
@deborah: I think the surface treatment (1 hr soak) works! The colors remained vibrant. The casts all worked, except for the untreated fruit ones.
What about putting dye in the glycerin. It might differentially be attracted to various sections, i.e., it might not penetrate the white.
This might also lead to some very funky-looking, unnatural results. This also interests me, but I'm first trying to master the natural look. It's sort of like painting -- you want to master realism before moving onto surrealism. But thanks for the idea!
One Pharaoh to another: The fruit is not as tasty in the afterlife...
You're welcome. Let's start with red, white, and blue for the Fourth :)
How do maraschino cherries do without embalming?
Does glycerin dehydrate and replace the water? What if you made a small incision in the whole fruit? Or injection maybe?
@deborah: Cherries work great!
It's leaves that I'm still struggling with. I want preserved, lifelike mint leaves dammit! I want to use them for mojitos, moscow mules, and mint juleps. And I need the mint julep by Derbytime, so the pressure is mounting.
Does glycerin dehydrate and replace the water? What if you made a small incision in the whole fruit? Or injection maybe?
That's the theory, yes. Injection probably wouldn't work because the displaced water needs to go somewhere.
Chick, have you heard of drying flowers with silica gel crystals? It works well, but I don't know about leaves. The fake flower industry is so good, they might make acceptable mint leaves.
silica gel drying images
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