What can I put on a perishable food to make it almost like plastic consistency?

Question

I'm trying to make earrings out of certain foods that would perish in a matter of weeks. So I'm looking for any kind of spray, brush-on, etc., type of product that would make the perishable foods into things that would last much longer.



Thank you!

Answer 1

I think you want to use acrylic resin, the stuff that is used to encase various small objects. But in this case you don't want a block of clear plastic on the outside, so you want to use a small amount of catalyst for a long set time, soak the food and put it on a slippery plastic sheet to drain and harden.
It may be possible to soak in just resin and spray on the catalyst but this is beyond my sure knowledge.
There are chemicals on the market which are intended to soak into punk wood and fill the voids and make it hard. They are water thin and are used where it would be much too expensive to remove the punk wood and replace it with good - like sills of windows and built in decorations. Once it has hardened, epoxy and other materials are used to fill out the shape and it is painted. The soaking in material might work with food.
The old fashioned was to coat the product with shellac to make it air tight. This is how foods were treated to display in restaurants before ultra realistic plastic models started being made.