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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Magnavis" data-source="post: 5250335" data-attributes="member: 171664">Some more updates! I've mainly been doing casting and moulding over the past week, but I've also nearly got all of the wet sanding done, in prep for painting! The main area of focus has been the Snitch, and the crystal pieces for the Locket. The locket pieces took 2.5 takes to get right. I'm very impatient, so waiting 24 hours for resin to cure properly is the stuff of nightmares! but eventually, I ended up being able to mix and match a piece for the front and back from pours two and three. Polished up, they look great![ATTACH=full]1512098[/ATTACH]The tint in the 3rd pour is actually perfect. A little off on the front, but with gold behind it, it's still going to be close enough, and from an angle, the color is perfect on both, which was the goal. Onto the snitch. I've been messing with the Snitch a lot this week. We got the new mould made, which is so much cleaner than the first. Once I got used to it, it now makes completely seamless pulls each time, which is brilliant. I did a lot of testing with pigments. I always planned to cold cast in brass, and my early test was doing this, using the old mould.[ATTACH=full]1512099[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512100[/ATTACH]So this was super encouraging, and apart from the issues with the mould, it came up really nice. But I did want to try and get something a little closer to gold, as, well, it is the Golden Snitch. So we did some experimenting. I picked up some Alumillite Powdered gold, which looked like it would do the trick. The problem with this however, is that you can't really polish it. It just rubs off, which was super disappointing. I even tried mixing some of the brass with the gold, but nothing really worked the way I hoped. If I had polished my master before casting, then this gold would be brillaint. Alas, I did not, as I always planned on polishing after the fact. So, hey-ho... [ATTACH=full]1512105[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512106[/ATTACH]So back to brass we went. For the final cast, I double coated the mould in brass powder, and then mixed ~60 grams of brass powder into the resin before pouring. This essentially makes it a solid brass piece, bound together with resin. To my great surprise, it came out flawless. No bubbles, marks, pockets of air. Nothing.[ATTACH=full]1512107[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512108[/ATTACH]All that I needed to do then, was cut the pour spot off, and clean that area up, so it was nice and flush (and not flat), and then polish it up on my polishing wheel, which is proving a very good addition to my setup![ATTACH=full]1512109[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512110[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512111[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512112[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1512113[/ATTACH]I also got the stones for the sword - which were cast the other day - polished up too[ATTACH=full]1512114[/ATTACH]I'm moving nicely towards the finish line, which is nice...Everything that's to be painted is now wet sanded, except the cup. I'm also working on a display stand for the Sword, but apart from some cut chipboard, I don't really have anything to show of that just yet. More Soon™ <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big Grin    :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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