In my youth, my dad gave me a catalog from a supplier of scientific equipment. It used to be called Ward’s Natural Science Establishment. Their website is Wardsci.com. He let me buy things from the catalog from time to time. I started with some things like flasks and microscope slides. I was rapidly turning into a happy science nerd.

I noticed they had a little kit to make something called “Bio-Plastic Mounts.” With that little kit, I could take specimens such as bugs, coins, or postage stamps and embed them in clear plastic blocks. I fooled around with it for a while, then moved on to other pursuits.

What I’m thinking now is that embedding things in clear plastic could be a great business for someone. So far as I know, it’s not being offered anywhere.

Imagine, a client could send you an important keepsake, maybe a four-leaf clover, or a snapshot, or a scientific specimen, or a special coin. You embed it in plastic, and charge a lot of money!

Now there will be some difficulties to overcome. First, so far as I can tell, Ward’s no longer sells the kit. All they have is the bio-plastic material, a two-part liquid that hardens. The kit contained a mold, some of the liquid plastic, and mold release compound, plus some miscellaneous brushes and such, as I recall.

The procedure was to prepare the specimen. It had to be dry. I found out early on that any liquid would leak out and contaminate the mount. Then, I’d coat the mold with release compound, mix up some of the plastic liquid, and fill the mold about a third of the way. Shining an incandescent lightbulb on the mold, I let the plastic layer harden overnight. Then I’d set the specimen on that layer of hardened plastic, and fill the remaining two thirds of the mold with plastic. Once the plastic was hardened, I’d snap it out of the mold.

You’d think that would be it, but no, the work was just beginning. The surfaces of the mount were rough and not entirely transparent. Each surface had to be sanded until there were no bumps or depressions, then sanded and polished with ever finer grits until it became fully transparent. I did it by hand, and by the time I was done, the edges were often rounded. If I had a belt sander, my mounts would have been finished much faster, and come out much better.

No doubt you could improve on the process. There may be molds that you can acquire or make that leave a smooth enough finish that sanding and polishing is not required. There may be another, better source of plastic. I remember how stinky the stuff was. Perhaps Ward’s discontinued it because it was toxic.

If you can work out a nice process, you’d have a very nice home business on your hands! You could make mounts of things like four-leaf clovers (that you can buy on Ebay) and sell them locally such as at flea markets, or online through Ebay, Etsy or Amazon. You could let people know they can send their keepsakes or specimens to you for embedding. You would have to be practiced and careful, because you don’t want to wreck things that could be very important to your clients. But, you could charge a heck of a lot of money for a mount, right?

Taking the concept a step further, one could make coffee tables and other large things with embedded specimens in plastic.

Look at General Business Action Pack to make this business easy and profitable.