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TRON JOYSTICK HANDLES (Recasting) PART 1
ErikRuud:
--- Quote from: rdagger on May 13, 2006, 02:57:09 pm ---For people who want to try it themselves, I just had some luck casting some volcano lens. I used Alumilite which is kind of expensive, but I found another casting resin by Environmental Tech that is much cheaper. I haven't tried it, but it looks good. It comes in clear and there are dyes including translucent blue. They also have a translucent pearl that would be cool or maybe you could make a red, white & blue stick. To eliminate the bubbles, I've been curing the resin in a paint tank pressurized to 45 PSI. I should have taken some pictures of the process, but I have had so many failures that I stopped filming.
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Thoses resins are a different sort of animal. I know for a fact that the first one on the pages has a rather powerful smell. Kind of like nail polish, only stronger. You can usually smell it even from inside a brand new unopened can.
The mold materail on that site is a liquid latex. Latex tends to shrink as it cures, which is not a good thing when you are trying to replicate parts.
The silicone molding materials have very little (almost none) shrinkage at all.
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: ErikRuud on May 15, 2006, 08:41:57 am ---
--- Quote from: Fozzy The Bear on May 13, 2006, 12:27:28 pm ---
Translucent Blue... and possibly Red as well...... UV Reactive, ermmm don't know yet! I'll take a look at that.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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Possible leads on UV Pigments.
http://www.dayglo.com/products_nightglo.asp (Untested)
http://www.specialtycoatingschem.com/pg-3.htm#k-color (Reccomended by http://www.lumicast.com/)
http://eagerplastics.com/7702.htm
I got these links from a discussion on the Yahoo Casting group. The first one had not been tested by anyone on the group. The other two were reccomended by peopl that had actually used them.
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Thanks Erik, I'll take a look at those.... It might slow things down a bit if I have to order them in and I'm also not too sure that they will ship transatlantic, due to the fact that they're chemical compounds. but I'll pass the brand names to my local supplier and see what they can turn up.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
rdagger:
I've been having problems with my clear casts coming out sticky to the touch. Is there anything you can do to reduce the tackiness?
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: rdagger on May 16, 2006, 02:03:10 am ---I've been having problems with my clear casts coming out sticky to the touch. Is there anything you can do to reduce the tackiness?
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Using what resin and catalyst in what type of mold and how are you getting it in there??
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
Xiaou2:
I once tries the 'Environmental Tech' clear resin. Had the same 'sticky' problem.
It seems you have to have "perfect" measurements. They wanted you to calculate actual "volume" and maybe even weight. Since I didnt have a weight scale or any other simular method.. (id long forgotten such math works) I guessed. Well.. I guessed wrong.
Too much hardener.. and it will be briittle and crack. Too little, and it wont cure fully. (or may take years to do so.. if ever)
I also left the unused 'can' sit too long untouched. While the cap was on tightly.. it somehow managed to harden itself over time. :( A pile of money down the drain. :(
Alumilite was much easier to work with.. but seemed to have drawbacks.
The major one was strength. Anything thin was pretty frail. And if you dropped a piece.. or threw it.. it would break appart - whereas 'real' plastics would not. Large parts did faily well though.
I believe sometimes I had trouble with it being too mushy even after the said 'de-mold time'. Strange, because sometimes it was perfect, and others... with the same exact mix, was bad. I then pre-heated the molds, and that seemed to help.
(in hind-sight, this may have been caused when "mixing" both parts.. and not haveing
a perfectly blended mix. But.. if mixed very vigorously, I think I got air bubbles into the stuff. a mechanical mixer of some sort may work better...)
Occasional air bubbles too... if your not very carefull when pouring. Which is a bit tricky.. givien that you have to mix both parts well.. and pour the suff in slowly.. all before 2 or 3 minutes, upon which time it will harden.
Cant use 'clears', unless you have a vacume supposedly.
The silicone rubber was pretty damn expensive. Of course, I didnt realize to try useing
part Plaster either. :( Still... if a mold fails.. you feel Very bad $. :(
You couldnt expect to make thin stuff like an encoder wheel. Found that out the hard way. :( Spokes broke when trying to extract the part. Then more broke, when handled lightly.
Not sure how durrable it would be for active mechanical stuff either.
Ohh, and I also let a jug of the stuff sit too long.. and it also hardened. :( Took a lot longer than the E.T. stuff.. but all the same... :(