HipsterPunks recently started selling some caps he's been playing with making, so I figured I should do a little review of the one I got. Keep in mind that these are still prototype-ish and he is improving the design and molds, so some of the things I mention are likely to be improved on or changed. Instead, take this as a review at one stage of his evolution.
First off
PICTURES!Top
Bottom
Sprue Side
First ImpressionsWhen I first picked up the cap, I was shocked with how light it is. I'm taking a wild guess and assuming he uses
Alumilite Regular, a.k.a. Super Casting Resin since it has a similar feel to the ones made by
jiggityjane.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed by the quality of the cast. Admittedly, it would benefit from the eyes being slightly less depressed so you can more easily see the design, but the quality of the cast in terms of level of detail and his commitment to improvement is definitely there. If you look closely, you can see the cracks in the sealant he put over the master the cap was cast from. Sadly, unlike my Derp Cap v2, there are no fingerprints, so it's lacking that more intimate touch...of course, that's probably a plus for most people.
He also thought about how to make the cap more solid. Taking a note from other cap crafters, he filled the base of his master some and thickened up the walls, making the cap nice and thick. That's a detail that's, unfortunately, missing from some caps. My Boost RoboGeek is one such cap like that, though his latter SuperHero is nice and thick. The result is a more solid and durable feeling cap, even if it is rather light.
The one quibble I had with the design is that the cap is backwards. The slope is on the back side of the cap instead of the leading edge. When I mentioned that to HipsterPunks, he stated that was an artistic choice.
I could also make mention of how large the sprue is, but it generally blends into the cap and he's done a good job of sanding it down to a less noticeable size. It's an issue that every cap maker has to play with to find out what works for them and how to best do it. From messages with him, HipsterPunks is working on figuring out some ways to improve the sprueing and make it less noticeable. And, for those of you who have never had to do sprueing, it's a *****. Every master needs a different sprue setup and sometimes what you think will work best for a design doesn't, at least not with gravity and pressure casting. You need vacuum casting or spin casting to make sprueing easier.
Trying it outWhen I tossed the cap on the stem, the first thing I noticed was how tight the stem is. If you've ever tried your hand at making caps, you know how easy it is to mess a stem up. I know I've screwed up more than my fair share and I've had ones that started out great and got worse as the mold was used more. So it's pretty exciting to see someone just starting to pretty much perfectly nail stem tightness.
This is the other area where an issue popped up. While packing the bottom of the cap around the stem can make a more solid cap, you have to be careful to not overdo it. It's an easy mistake to make since you don't always think about the switch all the way through when you make the master. The cap works, it just sits a little high and doesn't have the most comfortable feeling when bottoming out. I talked to HipsterPunks and made him aware of why the cap bottoms out like it does and he said it will be addressed in future molds. Like I said, it's a learning process and he seems more than willing to take constructive criticism and improve on his design. Give him another couple of months to a year and I'm sure he'll be banging out perfect caps every time.
Final WordsWhether you like the design or not, HipsterPunks is off to a great start with his Killed by Kaps resin cast custom caps. While I have some minor issues with them, he's learning, taking constructive criticism, and applying it to improving his caps and designs. If I saw another design of his I liked pop up in the classifieds, I'd grab it in a heartbeat since I know the quality is there and only getting better.
