Ok I have some updates. Nothing thrilling yet. Soon I will start putting clay on the hands and finishing the sculpt on the thighs. So here is what I have .
This is the left hand opened up after the first side of silicone was poured.
Then it was on to the next half.
I thought it looked cool to see the hand in there.
I decided to go ahead and pour the none collapsible left one first so I could do some work, hopefully sculpting, while
I monkey with the collapsible aspect.
Got the parts cut off and keys built.
Decided to stick with clay for building the block molds. It really is easier. I use nails pushed threw the clay walls
and into excepting holes to suspend the pieces.
Here is the vacuum chamber I put together. I have to share the story on the vacuum pump. My friend is an A/C guy and has
one I could borrow when I need but I thought I would just look around on ebay for a cheap used one. There is no such thing . I bid on a couple
and was out bid as I didn't want to spend much. Then last week I see this Robinair 15800 which is top of the line and new are around $260.00. This one is used of course. There was 10 minutes left on the bidding and it was only at 19 bucks so I bid 50 bucks. What usually happens is the last couple of minutes it jumps
up as people are trying to get it, well it was down to 2 minutes and only at 32 bucks. I thought something was up and it was. I decided to read the
discription and there it was "for parts only. not working". I was pissed at myself for not reading. I tried to withdraw my bid to no avail. So of course I won.
After a few minutes of stomping around the house I relocated mysel to the fact that I may have a 52 dollar (20 dollar shipping) paper wieght. The thing came in the mail a few days ago. I plugged it in just to see and it made a horrible grinding noise. I took the rear motor shroud off to find a plastic fan blade busted to crap.
Since most vacuum pumps don't evan have this fan for cooling I just took it off and turned it on again. Purred like a kitten. I couldn't believe it. I filled it with oil and that was that. My total investment for the whole system, $52.00 for the pump, $20.00 for the old pot off Craigslist, $50.00 worth of all those stupid little brass fittings, and $10.00 for the vacuum gauge off Ebay, oh and $5 for some gasket material, for a total of $137.00. I was pretty pleased. Sorry for the long story but I had to share.
Here's the pump in action on my last batch of silicone for the finger molds. I didn't need it for this but I just had to try. It worked like a champ. It was weird as the silicone poured differently with no bubbles in it.
Here are the finger cups. Initially I made them out of resin with no fiberglass. I decided they were a little brittle after one fell
on the floor and cracked. I fiberglassed the lower half of each one. Now maybe I can do something that people will be interested in.
I know this is all sort of boring prep stuff.
Ready to have some extensions and fingernails sculpted to them. They aren't as thick as they appear
in this photo. At the suggestion of George (ptgreek) I will be covering the hands in a thin layer of wax so
while I'm sculpting I don't end up with to thin of walls. I will use the collapsible core for the actual pour which because they
have no wax on them will make the gloves the thickness of the clay and wax. Thanks George.
I love watching how you make things. Thank you for sharing. You have definitely put a tremendous amount of thought and effort into all of this.
