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News update: Last night I placed the tube on sponge rubber and toweling atop a lazy-Susan bearing which made it possible to rotate the tube as I injected distilled water containing a few drops of dish detergent to aid wetting. Using medical syringes, the injections were spaced about 1 inch apart and went in about an inch in the resin between the safety glass and the tube face. On average I was able to get in 1 to 2 CCs of liquid in each position. By the time I was finished getting around the circumference, I was able to easily remove almost an inch wide strip of resin from completely around the tube. I then soaked the tube overnight up to just above the gap between the safety glass and the tube face in the same solution. This morning I decided it probably wasn't necessary to waste a lot of water filling a tub, but rather simply keep the gap filled with liquid and refill it as needed. We'll see how this works. So far, so good.
The resin in this tube doesn't seem to be as rock hard as DaveWM described in some of the tubes he worked on, but I bet that exposure to air promoted hardening when the clear edge tape was removed and the time between removal and water application could be measured in hours or days. In this case, the water application was pretty soon after tape removal. This is pure conjecture on my part. Thoughts anyone?
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