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.