ideas on how to craft/ mold a key?

[pkott716]

Hi, let me first start out I am a complete noob to model making, I am an industrial design student so I do however know some things, for years Ive had a sick obsession with the Key Of Bastille that Lafayette gave to George Washington I have hundreds of pictures and have even contacted Mount Vernon for the exact dimensions of the key, my question is, how do i make my own? I have no soft modeling experience but it doesnt look hard to sculpt, I was thinking of using Super Sculptey but that was as far as i got, the original key is made of iron, so if you guys had any idea what process i could go through to go from Sculptey to Iron, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

I Contacted the Curator at mount Vernon who gave me the dimensions its about 10 inches long and weighs 4 lbs out of wrought iron, she also sent me a picture of it with a dollar bill for size reference, anyways, heres a pretty good picture of it

http://emuseum.mountvernon.org/media...W-14%20A&B.jpg

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/724...1E70F2B3269972

any ideas on how to make it?

what i really need is, what material you guys think it needs to be sculpted from, then if that material can be cast directly into iron, or what process i need to go through to get it to iron. thanks guys.

 

[DaveG]

Iron is usually cast into sand molds. That is, fine grained sand, sometimes with resin binders, is packed around the original pattern. the pattern is carefully removed from the packed sand mold, gates and flues are cut into the sand to allow the iron to be poured, and then molten iron is poured into the mold. Once the iron has cooled the sand is knocked off and the extra iron from the gates and flues is cut away. Then the final piece is cleaned up with grinders and files. The casting will have a fine texture, based on the kind of sand used. To get a smooth finish you'll have to work the surface a bit.

The pattern can be made of anything rigid. Wood is often used to make foundry patterns. It is important that all sides of the pattern have a draft angle, usually between 5 and 15 degrees, so the pattern can be pulled out of the packed sand without disturbing it. This would probably only apply to the blade portion of the key. The edges in the iron casting can be filed square during the clean up process.The cylindrical shank and handle will be fine.

Do a search in your area for foundries. You'll need to find one that caterers to artists and sculptors rather than a big industrial foundry that makes manhole covers.

If you do a search on the web for sand casting you'll probably find a whole bunch more information.

Lost wax casting is another process used to cast metal, though mostly for bronze. In this process a rubber mold is made from your original pattern. A wax copy is then made from this mold. The wax, with additional gates and sprues, is then invested, or jacketed in plaster. Once the plaster is cured it is put into a kiln which burns out all the wax. Molten bronze is poured into the still hot plateer mold. Once cooled, the plaster jacket is broken away and the casting cleaned up as with the iron. Lost wax casting can yield much more intricatly detailed and complex castings than sand. A foundry may be able to cast iron using lost wax, you'd have to ask. Lost wax casting will cost more than sand casting since there are more steps.

Good luck.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

...
what i really need is, what material you guys think it needs to be sculpted from, then if that material can be cast directly into iron, or what process i need to go through to get it to iron. thanks guys.

Wrong question, actually

That key could be done from all modelling materials and a combination of those.

Sheet styrene, wood, clay, sculpey, wax, paper, I don´t know. You also could make a 3D model of it and have it printed out in resin, or even directly in metal. Or again milled out on a CNC-mill, again in metal, wood, polyurethane.

For casting the key you could make a silicone mold from your master pattern and then make a pewter key out of. For a professionally cast item you should take the master to a foundy.

 

[Spartan375]

You can make your own backyard foundry if you have a backyard and the money for it.

I think you actually want to cast things in iron and that's why am telling you that.

Of course, you cant mold the oginal!
You have to made a copy.
To make a copy, you first need to make a detailed schematic on paper or PC.
Then select materials you can work them easily, like wood or plastic. Also take some Bondo or metal putty.

Then start making your prop key.

When finnish, paint it to see if the surface is as you want it. It must mot like is made from plastic or wood, but from metal.

Then, either go to a foundry or make your own foundry.
Search YouTube for metal casting and DIY backyard foundry videos.

Be very, very careful in each case, liquid metal is not something to play with.

 

[pkott716]

thanks so much guys this helps alot!

 

[zenix]

Well, I was bored so I started working on a model of this... I'm almost done. I need some better pictures of the 'necklace' it seems to be wearing up by the handle

 

[zenix]

Well, I was bored so I started working on a model of this... I'm almost done. I need some better pictures of the 'necklace' it seems to be wearing up by the handle

and also, is it exactly 10" from the back of the handle to the top of the key?

 

[Wesman]

Hi. Cool project. If I were doing it, I would start with a woodlathe and create the handle as one piece and the shank as another. For the teeth, I would probably use acrylic sheet and cut the details in it, although you could use sculpey (for the whole thing actually) but I find that in making mechanical masters (as opposed to organic type forms) it's hard to make it sweet with sculpey. Anyway, for the woodlathe method, use a wood that has little grain to it, like geluton or basswood, and sand it on the lathe after you shape it. Fit the pieces together with some accurate sanding and superglue them together. Fix the transitions with a fine bondo and sand it to perfection. Seal the wood with a sealer (could be shellac or crystal clear). Prime it and sand it some more, fixing any defects with spot putty. Prime again as necessary. Make a two part tin-based silicone mold. In this mold you can cast a variety of materials to make your model. Low temp metal (bismuth) would be kind of expensive and it would weigh more than iron and still need to be made to look like iron. There are resins, like a polyester resin designed to have metal powders added to them up to 600% by weight. These come out almost like actual metal for weight and appearance. You could just cast them in a tinted rigid urethane with the mold dusted with a fine iron powder. Short of that you could make the rigid urethane keys and paint them with a metal fx paint. If you want to have an iron casting made, the unpainted urethane part would be a good choice to send to the foundry. Have fun and good luck.--Wesman

 

[zenix]

 

[pkott716]

wow zenix that's incredible, i didnt know you guys were so interested in this project, the key is 10 1/8th inches from the back of the handle to the top of the key and has a diameter of 1 9/16th's, when cast out of wrought iron weighs about 4 lbs

 

[pkott716]

as an update, I have began molding my key, i am carving the shank and handle from basswood and the "fins"??? from super sculpey as its an easy medium to work with, when its done i can bake the sculpey and hopefully glue everything together, then Ive had a little bit of experience with Accu-Cast, which is amazing stuff, and also cheap!

then from there im a little lost, i could pour wax into the mold and send it directly to the foundry, or cast it out of polyester resin and add in iron to correct weight, any other ideas?

 

[zenix]

wow zenix that's incredible, i didnt know you guys were so interested in this project, the key is 10 1/8th inches from the back of the handle to the top of the key and has a diameter of 1 9/16th's, when cast out of wrought iron weighs about 4 lbs

more bored than interested...

I'll tweak my length since i used 10" exactly, and i only estimated the diameter. I modeled that just off of the one picture and didn't know about the other details on the key flaps. I'll play with it later to make it more accurate.

It would cost me around $50 to print it out in plastic, and I'd have it in my hand in less than 2 weeks.

 

[clonesix]

couple of thoughts:

Do you care what material you make this out of? Does it need to be iron? If not, this lools pretty simple to make in wood and paint. If it does, can you modify an antique key to look like this one?

If it you MUST have it in cast iron, sculpt the model in wax, and take it to a foundry for casting.

BTW, you also need to make the case that it hangs in.



BTW, they stormed the Bastille and let everyone out. Why would they give the key to anyone?

 

[pkott716]

I absolutely will make the case the key sits in, i want the whole package to hang in my office zenix, could you really mold the whole thing in plastic? that might be an avenue i would be willing to do if you could do it for 50 bucks

 

[Darth Humorous]

Do you intend to use the resulting cast iron key as a real key? If not, then you are good to go.

But if so, cast iron is a bad choice because of brittleness, unless gray ductile cast iron is the material/method used. In reality, keys of this sort were not cast in iron. Key blanks would have been forged by a blacksmith, and the original material would be wrought iron. A locksmith would have filed the ward patterns into the bit (the real name of the rectangular part), and possibly the fancy shape at the very end of the shank. And it is possible and even likely that the blacksmith was also the locksmith.

Since wrought iron is no longer a common material, modern blacksmiths could recreate the key in mild steel.

Mark

 

[zenix]

I absolutely will make the case the key sits in, i want the whole package to hang in my office zenix, could you really mold the whole thing in plastic? that might be an avenue i would be willing to do if you could do it for 50 bucks

when you say whole package, you mean also the box thing its hanging in?

my $50 estimate is based on the material its going to use to print a hollow version of that key. it costs me about $50 to print that part, and about 80 if we're going to use a different material that allows us to make castings. the cheaper material isn't nice to silicon. that way is only worth it if someone else would want to buy one.

making that case is a whole separate other project

 

[pkott716]

no darth the key is just going to sit in a display case, the reason i originally wanted cast iron was because that's what the curator at mount vernon ( where the original is) told me but i most likely will be having it made out of some sort of mild steel. Zenix, ill get back to you soon if i need it made, that sounds great, thank you so much for the help guys, this forum rocks

 

[zenix]

i'm building a foundry and i'll be able to make metal castings soon. This is one of the projects I'll work on... so I'll have it available in cast aluminum.

 

[zenix]

foundry works. just gotta print a key, and then make the mold of the key now =)
http://picasaweb.google.com/tblatt/MyFirstFoundry02?feat=directlink

 

[Dung0beetle]

foundry works. just gotta print a key, and then make the mold of the key now =)
Picasa Web Albums - Todd - My First Foundry

Good excuse to drink more soda! :thumbsup