This is a 1996 Canon BCTV zoom lens and today I'm going to show you the quirks and features
of this camera lens.
I'm just kidding.
We're actually gonna encase it in resin and cut it in half.
Let's talk about this.
I think we added a little bit too much catalyst and the resin started hardening up before
we could get all the bubbles out.
If you look at the top as the bubbles were coming up like that's real bumpy weird.
Like it was starting to harden as it was popping.
You can see there's a little bit of an air bubble there.
So the purpose of putting it in resin: we've cut a camera lens in half before, but whenever
we cut them in half all of the glass elements inside just kinda fall apart and you lose
pieces.
The idea with this is that all stays intact.
So I still think we'll be able to achieve that.
Maybe after we cut this in half we can put it back in resin to fill in all the voids
and make a really cool desk ornament.
So do you think the resin penetrated all the way through?
Umm, no.
Like none at all.
Where was that air bubble we saw?
I think the air bubble we were seeing on the bottom is an air bubble trapped on the outside
of the lens that couldn't escape the ring and work its way up since that side was down.
So it turns out this lens was much more dust and weather sealed than we thought.
There are only two spots where we can see that some resin was able to get inside.
And there.
But every managed to stay in place anyway.
We've got a nice cross-section of a couple screws, and we got a nice view of the aperture
blades.
In total this ended up having 14 glass elements.
Next step is going to be making a new mold around this, filling in all the voids with
resin, vacuuming it again and then breaking it loose and hopefully we've got something
that's all frozen in place.
Cuz we've got some pieces that are still a little loose and we don't want those falling
out.
You tired yet?
YEP How many hours did you spend sanding?
It was like four wasn't it?
A couple.
So this thing did not turn out great but it's still cool?
Could be worse.
could be worse.
K so obviously this one was a bit of a learning experience.
Lesson 1 learned: do not use polyester resin.
We needed to use a true like epoxy casting resin. and I think this stuff is just cheap
which is why it's got like a pink hue to it.
It said it cures clear but that's obviously not the case.
Another issue is polyester resin tends to shrink just a little bit when it cures.
Which is why you can see that the resin is pulling away from the camera lens inside of
the block.
And because it shrinks and we're doing such thick pours, that's what forms these cracks
that you see going through it.
But I think we've got everything kind of figured out to be able to do it right the next time.
Hopefully.
Or so we think haha.
And we picked up a giant stock pot that we are going to turn into a vacuum chamber we
might have to reinforce it because it might start to implode on itself once we pull vacuum
and we'll need to get a bigger pump.
But with that we'll be able to do much bigger items.
So please leave down in the comments what you want us to encase and cut next.
This is uhh I think 24 inches in diameter so that will be our limit.
I'll ask Mitchell if he wants to do it.