Pendant Made Out of Bread

Some time ago, Peter received a vacuum chamber to try out on some resin projects.

When used with stabilizing resin, these are often used in woodworking applications to reinforce the internal structure of an otherwise porous and potentially fragile chunk of wood. While under a vacuum, all air is sucked out of the material and subsequently replaced by the stabilizing resin when the vacuum is released. After this resin is cured, it provides a much more stable piece than when you began.

Peter first tried this process out on a very light block of acacia wood.

The wood was light, not very dense and even floated atop of the resin! After weighing it down within the chamber, the vacuum pump was started up.

Once the block was ready, it was time for the final step in the process, curing in a toaster oven. It may have been during this step where Peter got an epiphany!

TOAST! Can this process work on bread/toast? Would this idea rise to the occasion or would the resin end up being the yeast common denominator? No time for loafing around, it was time to find out!

Peter recorded the starting mass of the bread and dunked it in the stabilizing resin.

After vacuuming out air bubbles for quite some time, it was time to remove it from the chamber. Peter carefully lifted the slices out in what appeared to be the weirdest French toast recipe of all time and into the toaster oven it went.

The resulting difference in mass clearly showed what a difference the resin made.

After breaking the bread to view it’s internal crumb, it became clear that the results were far from crummy…

Gluten was no longer the only thing giving this bread its structure! The resin bonded to the bread itself instead of filling in the holes, which help it retain it’s original look. Cool!

With a generous glob of hot glue, it was time to mount it on the lathe of course! Using traditional woodworking tools, Peter was able to turn the bread into something that looked pretty delicious and smelled delicious too apparently.

After some further finishing and some clear coat for some shine, the Bread Pendant was done! I keep telling him that he could make a baker’s dozen of these to sell and make some nice dough as it’s much better than sliced bread!