Re: Fallout 3: Mini-Nuke WIP
Ok, I've been busy this weekend. Sorry in advance for the long post, you get three days worth at once.
Friday night I got home and added some fake rivets, vents and a pour spout to the clay. The plan is to pour resin into the spout you can see on the very left of the picture and have it flow around and fill the rivets and then up and out the vents.
Next step was to apply the rubber. I had one problem here. One of the fake rivets had floated off of the clay. I almost cried. But I was able to re-position it and pressed it down pretty good. I really should have cleaned off the area and done it right, but I figured that at worst I would have to clean up the edges of the rubber a little.
That took until late Friday night.
Saturday I got up, trimmed the rubber and cut some big V's to use as keys. I put some aluminum foil on the cardboard around the rubber and the V's so the plasti-paste would not bond to the cardboard. I really want to save this tube in case something goes horribly wrong. I put some Vaseline on the alumimum just to be sure the shell would not stick to the aluminum. Then I mixed up about twice as much plasti-paste as I needed and slathered it on for the mold shell.
I slept in late and this stuff always seems to take longer than I plan. After lunch I peeled the entire thing off of the tube. The paper came with it which I actually appreciated since it would make it easier to remove the paper without damaging the clay. I expected to have to clean up the clay on the backside and wanted to keep that work to a minimum.
So I removed the paper and was shocked to find the clay was in excellent shape.
At this point there was nothing left to do but get out some Vaseline and get busy. I covered the the silicone and edges of the plasti-paste so no unwanted bonding would go on and spent the next few hours applying the rubber for the inner half of the mold. The cure time meant that it would not be ready until late that night so I was done for the day.
This morning I got up and basically did a repeat of Saturday: trim rubber, more vaseline on the cured plasti-paste, and put plasti-paste on the new rubber. I left the top and sides mostly free of the plasti-paste.
I got vaseline on the outside so I decided to wait until after lunch to mess with this. I cracked it apart, cleaned out the clay, and cleaned up some of the excess rubber and shell. That rivet from earlier was under a very thin layer of silicone so I was able to clean that up just by pushing it through. Unfortunately, I also noticed that there was a small scratch in the mold from when I had been moving it around. Noticeable, but not horrible. Buyers note: you may or may not want to apply a little putty there.
I then cleaned it to get some of the Vaseline off the inside of the mold and the outside of the shell. Nothing left to do but try it out. This is where I ran into problems. I first used some SmoothOn 65D which is designed for rotocasting. I barely got any of it into the mold before it stopped flowing into it. No picture of that. I'm also a little worried that the resin is going bad. What did go in stayed soft and pliable. Which is great because I have most of a gallon of the stuff. I knew I should have been casting the occasional body and nose code for the last half year. :facepalm
So then I tired some SmoothCast 300 of even more questionable vintage to see if that did any better. It did, but not by much. I even tried pouring some in the vents but no joy.
Here you can see the divot I made while fixing the wayward rivet.
So it looks like I need to use a syringe to pump the resin into the mold before it goes off. The ironic thing is that five to ten years ago I probably could have gotten a box of them for free. My parents worked at Sherwood Medical, the manufacturer of Monoject needles and syringes. Oh well. So now I have to track some down hopefully without going through Amazon.