Artisan journey

[numberfive]

Inspired by others here, I took the plunge into the hairy and rewarding world of artisan crafting.  There have been moments of extreme frustration and a day-long buzz when some of my experiments turned out way better than I hoped.  What a rollercoaster, and it's been a blast so far.  If you're thinking about starting, do it!

Here is my second sculpt (the first was a test of a diver's helmet, which turned out ok, but was destroyed when demolding.  too many fragile parts).

A pressure pot is mandatory for bubble-free clearish casts:


But you can't tell with opaque:


Side shot:


The clearish ones take well to backlighting, which was a great surprise:


Then it was on to try my grand idea, a see-through visor.  I tried a double-shot, which worked!!  This was a 2 day buzz, I was so happy it worked.


Now I'm playing around with different colors for the visor, thinking about gray helmets and various colors for the visor to make these artisans more versatile on a variety of keyboards:


These are all the more successful caps.  Still not where I want them to be, but getting closer!  There are some rejects too, but I learned from each, so still a good experience overall.  What I learned with the below images:  using a pipette without planning for channels is hard, the plastic goop bleeds all over.  And mix properly, or you get that swirly mismatch on the right:


Not pictured are all the molds I screwed up from not mixing properly, not applying enough mold release between the two part molds, tears, etc.



Equipment used:
Super sculpey firm
Extruder tool (I don't have sculpting skills, so this was all playdoh fun factory time)
Xacto knife

Oomoo 30
Smoothcast 300 (ok for blanks, needs way too much dye though)
Smoothcast 325 (love love love this one, just have to keep a fan pointed as to not inhale the fumes)

TCP Global 2.5 gallon commercial pressure pot
Porter Cable 150psi air compressor

3ml pipettes
2oz clear plastic cups
tiny stir sticks
big stir sticks
gloves
eye pro
wax paper on the work surface

If anyone has any questions about the process or feedback, I'd love to hear it!  I'll share progress (good and bad) along the way too in case people are interested.

[numberfive]

Reserved

[AuthenticDanger]

That's a cool scuplt!! I would love a fighter pilot on my board (that's what it looks like to me)!

[numberfive]

That's a cool scuplt!! I would love a fighter pilot on my board (that's what it looks like to me)!

Thank you!  That's what I was going for.  It was humbling to hear the replies on Reddit, so I'll be doing a small-scale sale in about a month.  They're going to be the transparent visor versions in different color ways. I'll post in this thread and Reddit when it gets closer.

I'll also be doing special one-offs for the people that helped along the way, like I_Am_Not_Me.

[Taylorisg]

Very cool! How do you like your pressure pot? Did you have to do anything to retrofit it for casting?

Also, are you mixing very small amounts of resin to fill these caps or does a decent amount get wasted?

[Corgi Butts]

Very clean and nice design, love the look of the translucent goggles with the doubleshot.  Would definitely be interested in some cool colorways for this!

[numberfive]

Very cool! How do you like your pressure pot? Did you have to do anything to retrofit it for casting?

Also, are you mixing very small amounts of resin to fill these caps or does a decent amount get wasted?

The pressure pot is a game changer. It required very minor modifications:  I loosened the Allen bolts for the agitator pole and brought that all the way up, and removed the fluid pipe. There's plenty of room now for filled molds. The resin starts to cure fast, but I made a little lego shelving unit for wider molds that wouldn't fit side by side.

For mixing, I use a pipette with measurement lines. For 2 caps at a time (all I'm outfitted for presently), it's 6ml Part A and 6ml Part B.  That leaves only a tiny bit left over that I use for color samples. It's way more consistent and efficient than when I was just eyeballing it. Not to mention cleaner, less running down the sides of the container from a pour.

[Taylorisg]

Very cool! How do you like your pressure pot? Did you have to do anything to retrofit it for casting?

Also, are you mixing very small amounts of resin to fill these caps or does a decent amount get wasted?

The pressure pot is a game changer. It required very minor modifications:  I loosened the Allen bolts for the agitator pole and brought that all the way up, and removed the fluid pipe. There's plenty of room now for filled molds. The resin starts to cure fast, but I made a little lego shelving unit for wider molds that wouldn't fit side by side.

For mixing, I use a pipette with measurement lines. For 2 caps at a time (all I'm outfitted for presently), it's 6ml Part A and 6ml Part B.  That leaves only a tiny bit left over that I use for color samples. It's way more consistent and efficient than when I was just eyeballing it. Not to mention cleaner, less running down the sides of the container from a pour.

Awesome! This has been super helpful as I begin my schtuff!


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[numberfive]

Very clean and nice design, love the look of the translucent goggles with the doubleshot.  Would definitely be interested in some cool colorways for this!

Thank you!  That's the next part, trying to get the colors just right. It's a lot of trial and error, but very rewarding.

For right now I was going to keep it simple:  some combinations of black, white, and gray helmets with various visors (teal, green, blue, red, pink).  If there's enough interest, I'll do a set of metallic visors (silver, gold, bronze).

[numberfive]

Awesome! This has been super helpful as I begin my schtuff!

Glad to hear it!  Stay tuned, I've also decided to make a couple videos detailing this process because it was so hard to find a detailed walk through.

[KeLorean]

this is very cool. god job


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[klaushouse]

Very nice, well done and super clean! Excited to one day get a pressure pot.