HUGE Update
Okay, so a lot has happened since last week's update. I probably should have made 2 or 3 posts since then but I was too busy/lazy so I'm just going to throw
all of it into this post. I'll try to split them up into logical sections so it's easily digestible.
Let's get started.
I. First Mold
Since last week, I applied the
Loctite 545 thread sealant to my pressure pot's air inlet, and is has worked! No more air leakage from there (although there is still some leakage where the hose is connected to the coupler, but I'll have to take care of that some other time.
Without major air leaks, I can finally get pressurizing! I mixed up some Mold Star 30, poured it into the mold box and threw it into the pot. Pressurized to 60 psi and left it alone for around 6 hours.
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As you can see, the sculpt came clean off the mold base! I was surprised and happy about this, since previously I was worried that it would be hard to take off and might get damaged in the process. I had baked the sculpt onto the base, so it was lodged on there preeetty tightly. The sculpt also looks to be pretty fine after the process, no damage or anything. Pretty good results for a first attempt!
Now's time to cast the master, then!
II. First Master Casting Attempt
For all my casts so far, I used
Smoothcast 320 as my resin. I had read good things about this, so why not? I mixed it up, added some white and black dye to try to get a nice gray color for fun, and poured it into the mold.
I made a lot of mistakes during this first cast, as I was anxious and excited.
- I did not clear all the sprue holes. Luckily, the four sprue holes in the corners were clear so resin was able to escape onto the back plate. But not gonna make that mistake again.
- I did not use any release agent. I hadn't sprayed anything into the mold or the mold box. The more egregious of the mistakes was probably not spraying anything to release the cast from the metal mold box. It was extremely difficult to get the cap off of the base, and the stem removed from the back of the base. Practically had to pry the thing off, and really damaged the cap.
I didn't take any pictures during this, due to shame and my being upset
Well, except for one.
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III. Second Third Master Casting Attempt (Now with release agent!)
Since the first casting attempt, I made a second attempt but used some Mann 200 releasing agent and sprayed it basically on everything: the mold box, the mold cavity, the metal base and stem. That did not work well either, and the cap came out pretty horrendous (again, didn't take pics
). Afterwards, I did a ton more research on the array of release agent products that Smooth-On offers and decided to make a trip to my local Reynolds Advanced Materials, who just so happens to be one of their U.S. distributors. I picked up the following:
- Smooth-On Ease Release 205
- Smooth-On Universal Mold Release
- Smooth-On Ease Release 2831
- Some spray-on gloss
- Some brush-on gloss
- Smooth-On Sonite Wax
The gloss stuff is not the focus, but the other stuff is. With these new products in hand, I proceeded to brush on some Ease Release 205 onto the mold base, stem, and mold box. I then sprayed on some Universal Mold Release, as I believe this spray is specifically for releasing silicone/resin from
metal. I had the Wax and 2831 just in case this solution didn't work out, but it looks like it did just fine, luckily. I also sprayed some Mann 200 release agent, which is better suited for silicone-to-resin, into the actual cavity of the mold where I would be pouring resin.
All in all, the third attempt went much better than the first and the second. I was actually able to easily remove the cap from the base, and the stem from the stem insert. Results were still not great, I think I took the cast out of the pressure pot way too quickly (even though I waited for around 30 minutes, and this resin is advertised with a 10 minute cure time) and so the base warped when I was holding it (see pics).
Another thing I was dissatisfied with was I guess just the overall feel of the cap. It felt too light. That, and I just didn't like the feel around the edges. In a word, the cap felt cheap. Cheap is definitely
not something I would allow, so back to work, I guess.
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IV. Revised Sculpt + Attempts 4 - 6
I completely removed the front of the sculpt with the small tentacles and stuff and reapplied clay to the front to make it sturdier and more full. (Sorry if you liked the previous design of the front!) I noticed in one of my previous attempts that there were tiny holes along the sides -- looks like there wasn't enough clay in those spots. I also added another layer of clay
under the entire sculpt, so that the underside edges didn't look so ****ty/nonexistent. And lastly, I added more clay at the head of the sculpt, to make it look more full and make our friend The Shambler a little chubbier.
I redid the texturing on the revised head and banged my head against the wall for 2 days trying to get a new front + tentacles that I was satisfied with. I'm pretty happy with how it came out.
After all the baking and sanding, it was time for our third mold (I made a second one during the previous ****ty attempts). I did all the same stuff, and the mold came out pretty good again. Time for some casts!
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I was much happier with these results! Might I also add, the feeling of gratification you get from seeing your own cap on your board is amazing. I would imagine seeing my caps on other peoples' boards would be even better
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Anyways, much better results: the cap feels way heftier with the added mass, there's no holes in the sides, and the butt of the cap looked much, much better.
However, there are still a couple of problems I would like to fix before starting production runs:
- The butt of the cap isn't coming out smooth and flush. This appears to be because of the flashing that occurs in the mold cavity. And this is because there is a very tiny space where resin can seep into underneath the cap (see first 2 pics below). For my next mold I'll have to put some clay underneath the cap and seat it so that this doesn't happen. Of course I could just cut out the flashing but I don't want to risk making it ugly. This flashing is also why the butt of the cap comes out so weird and not-flush.
- The cap does not fit tightly enough on switches. It's tight enough to not fall off boards or fly off when pressing the switch, but I would like it a little bit tighter. This is a bit trickier to solve and I'm still brainstorming as I type this out.
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All in all, again, better results than previously. But still not up to my standards. Hopefully I can fix 1 and 2 with my next mold, which hopefully should be done by tomorrow after I come back from work. With any luck, I'll post an update tomorrow evening with the final master!
Conclusion
That's about it for this big update. Thanks to anyone that read even just part of this. Hope that it's interesting or that it helps anyone that's also new to this process and wants to try their hand at it. It's definitely difficult and a big learning experience, but it's a
ton of fun seeing yourself improve every day. It's also exciting to share progress and get closer and closer to doing production runs of the caps that I can then share with you all in the community. Hope you're just as excited as I am.
Til' the next update!
Stay wonderful, everyone.