Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Peace out!

This is another one of those blogs I meant to write three months ago, but am just getting around to it now.  My dad has been wanting a rock polisher since the summer, so he can polish up all the fancy rocks Logan and Avery have found out at Kootenay Lake.  I told him I had seen one at Chinook Hobby West.  He decided right before Christmas that he wanted one, but I was too busy and didn't have time to go pick one up.  That turned out to be a good thing.

At the start of January I went to check and see if they had any left and when I went all craft stuff in the clearance centre was half price.  They had some rock polishers left, so I bought one and some supplies.  The original price on the rock polisher was $279.99 and they were selling it for $179.99 and it was half off of that, so it was a good deal.  This thing isn't some crappy plastic one either, I know because I used to have one and it broke all the time.  It's all metal and you could buy another drum for polishing brass.  Who polishes brass?  It was also the newest item in the upstairs area, it was from 2006.

Most of craft stuff in the clearance centre is way old, like Go-Bots models and spin art old!  I saw some sets that were from 1971, then I saw the Makit & Bakit "stained glass" kits.  I could've got Makit & Bakit, cross stitch or macrame, so I went with Makit & Bakit.  You fill in the metal cut out with the plastic beads and bake it in the oven.  It's that easy!


If you can see on the front of the card it says it comes with free self sticking Velcro fasteners.  On the back of the card it goes into detail about exactly what Velcro fasteners are and how to use them.  I guess this thing came out before Velcro was common.  How did people do up their shoes back then?  This was was half price, so I got it for only a buck.  Most of the kits were Christmas themed, but I got peace one because it doesn't have to be about Christmas.  Peace is something we need more than one day a year.

The instructions are pretty straightforward.  Place the frame on a cookie sheet that has been lined with aluminum foil.  Fill in the open sections so that the edges are level, but heaping full in the centres.  Put in a pre-heated oven at 375 for 15-25 minutes until the beads have melted to a smooth finish.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  A slight chemical odor is given off during the heating.  If you enjoy sniffing felt pens this will not be a problem, but if you don't then you might want to crack a window.


Here is mine right before it went into the oven.  The whole process is easy, but very tedious.  The instructions tell you to use tweezers and you actually need them on a piece this small.  I had place each bead in by hand with tweezers inside the letters.  The outside green I dumped some inside from the bag, but still ended up doing most of it by hand with the tweezers.  It took longer than I had expected.


The finished product and it's cracked!  When I pulled it out of the oven it looked pretty sweet and I was stoked, but then when I went to take if off the foil when it had dried I noticed a crack in it.  Then when I actually pulled it off the foil it cracked again down by the "E".  I followed all the instructions and I still messed it up.  Maybe I left it in too long?  Maybe I should let it cool down inside the oven next time?  It does look a little better than the picture shows, but right now it's buried under a pile of junk on the kitchen table.  A lot of stuff ends up buried under a pile of junk around here.

3 comments:

mike said...

What is you reheat it Keith? Either it will melt back together, or it will just melt..

Cam said...

Don't listen to that guy, you should just crack the other side in a perfectly symmetrical way. Prob solved in less than a second. Make sure it's PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL though. No pressure.

Cara said...

As an avid Makit & Bakit maker and baker in the late '80s, I have to say that rebaking it will not work. Maybe it cracked because it was just too old.

My kits used to come with a hook and a suction cup.... none of that new-fangled Velcro stuff.

PS - I have still not watched Riki-Oh, but the Ouija board says that a movie night is in the near future.