Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

Published: May 8, 2023
by Charles Busada


A Spanish museum contacted us to see if we could fix a work of art. The actual artwork is an elaborate set of collars that connect small-diameter tubing bent on a tight-radius circle. They sent us a sample of an acrylic tube.

Acrylic resin is famous for cracking, crazing, and breaking into fragments if dropped.

We recommended our Cellulose Acetate Butyrate tubing that is UV stabilized, and not succeptable to the above if treated properly. It is an amorphous solid and so it does not fracture on a crystal lattice (as found in acrylics).

   

We solvent welded the bulkheads to seal them and cut, tapered, threaded, and otherwise plumbed it so that each section would contain its own colored water.

We put the caps on the inside so as to keep the 120° sections true to a circle.

 

All in all, both we and the museum were quite satisfied with the results.

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