Pal Tiya, what is this witchcraft?

[Palantirion]

I have a little concrete and stone tortoise in my garden. Over 20 years or so the concrete weakened and his head (and right foot) split and fell off. Today I put the pieces back together with a few dabs of ProPoxy20 and CA to tack weld them while the Poxy cured. Because of erosion the concrete has some pretty wide cracks, and gaps. And half the right foot was completely gone.

I had bought a bag of Pal Tiya when I first heard about it - probably Savage's fault, as many good things are. I thought it would be good to fill the tortoise's cracks and gaps. Being experienced with a lot of epoxies, resins, adhesives, and putties I must say this stuff is WEIRD, in a lot of ways. I thought it would mix like cement, but it seems to soak up water and become more fluid over time, which led me to initially over water it. And it isn't sticky, but it sticks. Water smooths it out really well...and then it grows hair?!?! WTH? How does it grow hair? And why? It's like magical chopped fiberglass strands just appear, from what was a powder! Also, the hairs go away with an additional smoothing with a little water.

Because I added too much water I ended up with too much mixed material. So I thought I might as well try to replace the missing 1/2 of the right foot. This is about a full inch of depth and a couple inches wide and tall - far more than the instructions say is ok. I expected it to stick to the cement and then droop from it's own weight. While I finished blending the edges the bottom of the foot dropped a little. I nudged it back up a little and it didn't distort from the shape I had sculpted, or dent from pressure! I nudged it few more times over about 5 minutes while I tidied up the other repair areas. And then it just stayed there! It was nowhere near cured, but it just clung on like it had a brain and knew the shape I wanted it to keep. So weird.

I checked on it a couple hours later and it's dry but not fully cured (I think). The foot repair had not drooped at all! I wrapped the repair areas with damp cloths and plastic wrap - because according to the instructions water (that stuff that makes it runny) makes it STRONGER as it cures!?! Weird.

Has anyone here worked with it? I'm quite impressed, but feel like there is undoubtedly a plethora of tips and tricks Weta knows that might make this stuff even more interesting and unique medium.

Pal Tiya USA

Pal Tiya Premium, Weather Proof Sculpting Medium, Non-Firing Clay, Outdoor Clay, Sculpture, Garden Statuary, Garden Sculpture, Outdoor Sculpture, Pet Memorials, Urns, Planters, DIY Statuary, Make Your Own Statues, Outdoor Art, Exterior, Modeling, Mold, Mould, Paper Mache, Art, Design, Sculpting...

us.paltiya.com

 

[joberg]

I have a little concrete and stone tortoise in my garden. Over 20 years or so the concrete weakened and his head (and right foot) split and fell off. Today I put the pieces back together with a few dabs of ProPoxy20 and CA to tack weld them while the Poxy cured. Because of erosion the concrete has some pretty wide cracks, and gaps. And half the right foot was completely gone.

I had bought a bag of Pal Tiya when I first heard about it - probably Savage's fault, as many good things are. I thought it would be good to fill the tortoise's cracks and gaps. Being experienced with a lot of epoxies, resins, adhesives, and putties I must say this stuff is WEIRD, in a lot of ways. I thought it would mix like cement, but it seems to soak up water and become more fluid over time, which led me to initially over water it. And it isn't sticky, but it sticks. Water smooths it out really well...and then it grows hair?!?! WTH? How does it grow hair? And why? It's like magical chopped fiberglass strands just appear, from what was a powder! Also, the hairs go away with an additional smoothing with a little water.

Because I added too much water I ended up with too much mixed material. So I thought I might as well try to replace the missing 1/2 of the right foot. This is about a full inch of depth and a couple inches wide and tall - far more than the instructions say is ok. I expected it to stick to the cement and then droop from it's own weight. While I finished blending the edges the bottom of the foot dropped a little. I nudged it back up a little and it didn't distort from the shape I had sculpted, or dent from pressure! I nudged it few more times over about 5 minutes while I tidied up the other repair areas. And then it just stayed there! It was nowhere near cured, but it just clung on like it had a brain and knew the shape I wanted it to keep. So weird.

I checked on it a couple hours later and it's dry but not fully cured (I think). The foot repair had not drooped at all! I wrapped the repair areas with damp cloths and plastic wrap - because according to the instructions water (that stuff that makes it runny) makes it STRONGER as it cures!?! Weird.

Has anyone here worked with it? I'm quite impressed, but feel like there is undoubtedly a plethora of tips and tricks Weta knows that might make this stuff even more interesting and unique medium.

Pal Tiya USA

Pal Tiya Premium, Weather Proof Sculpting Medium, Non-Firing Clay, Outdoor Clay, Sculpture, Garden Statuary, Garden Sculpture, Outdoor Sculpture, Pet Memorials, Urns, Planters, DIY Statuary, Make Your Own Statues, Outdoor Art, Exterior, Modeling, Mold, Mould, Paper Mache, Art, Design, Sculpting...

us.paltiya.com

Wow...well, another product to investigate. Seems very easy to use and...growing hair Thanks for the play-by-play experiment.

 

[Metalalien]

Seems like a fix waiting for a project!

 

[Palantirion]

I find it hard to believe that no one from Weta is on this forum...hint hint...

 

[Palantirion]

So the wet curing thing is real. Weird, but real. The piece I left sitting out dried fine but is quite brittle. After 2 days of being covered with a damp rag and plastic trash bag that Pal Tiya was so hard I could barely make any impression. After 5 days under a wet rag and it's as hard as stone...I'm not sure how my cheap Chinese diamond bits and going to hold up to carving on it.

So far, relative to Apoxie, Pal Tiya is much faster to set up and sculpt with, but has a rougher surface and a much longer cure time in exchange for a harder/stronger end result. Pal Tiya can also be mixed wetter to cover more like a spread than a thick putty, which is why I used it for gap filling on my Aliens egg (no I don't have a thread on that project yet). Apoxie would be better overall for most small or fine detail sculpting, or when you don't have 5-28 days to wet nurse the sculpt. Trade-offs.

 

[joberg]

Thanks for being the one experimenting and describing the "after-effects" of putting this product under a wet rag.
I'm sure that those trade-offs will dictate when to use it

 

[Palantirion]

Mostly what I liked about Pal Tiya was the rapid pace with which one could mix and apply it. I don't like the excessive cure process - although for a smaller item that could be submerged it would be much easier. I was discussing it with a professional who said he uses Smooth On's Habitat line for applications like my egg patches, and looking at the vids it seems to a sort of middle ground between Pal Tiya and Apoxie for application, with a typical Apoxie-like overnight cure time. The Habitat line also has a flexible version which is very interesting to me for other reasons. I'd bet that Pal Tiya is probably best for weather-exposed sculpts, and probably not much else. It does give a nice rock or concrete texture without extra work, so that's nice...not sure that alone would be worth the cure process.

 

[Palantirion]

p.s. I forgot to mention that the hairs came back when I wet the cured tortoise for cleaning prior to sealing. This does kind of ruin the texture in the repair areas. However the instructions say to take a torch to them and they will burn off. I didn't have one handy so I just wet them and pushed them down, then sealed the areas. That project is not high fidelity...but on the egg I'm going to need to torch it - without making the old fiberglass base material too hot.