Toy Story Robot - Tread help needed!

[BlindSquirrel]

Hey everybody!

I've been working on a commission of the Robot from the Toy Story movies. A minor character but there are some hardcore collectors out there!

Here's what I have completed so far

I've hit a stumbling block when it came to making the tread. I built a master tread for each side as a flat piece, made a silicone mold and cast MoldMax 27T (Shore 40) into them. I mixed up and painted the red letters first and backed it with black. After de-molding, I used a little more silicone to glue the ends together. The silicone turned out to be too translucent to get a decent red and I hated the seam I was left with.


My next step will be to make a resin copy of the tread, join the loops and make a new mold to cast the tread as one piece. What I don't know, is what I need to use/do to get good color on the letters?

Any suggestions?

 

[EmmaInCandyland]

Ho Hi Mike You're here too xD!

Why don't you handpaint the letters? Maybe with some enamel paint?

 

[BlindSquirrel]

The trick is using a paint that will stick to the rubber. Nothing sticks to silicone but silicone and urethane rubber emits an oil that resists paint. I'm sure there's a solution out there but I have yet to find it.

 

[nick daring]

Derpa derp

 

[BrundelFly]

How about Using powder pigment?

Smooth on make a series of pigments, in powder form. The trick, is to "paint" them into the mold, in addition to or instead of, mixing in with the material itself.

So its Black tread, red letters.

Ok you could:

1) Use a translucent urethane, very carefully dry paint IN THE MOLD the letters red, the the tread black, then pour the material. Will help to pressure cast.
2)Dry Paint the letters in the mold red, use a BLACK dyed urethane ( Dye it with the wet pigment).
3) Use red dry pigment on the whole mold, then "paint" the black with either flexible paint, like an acrylic, or try a lighter viscosity urethane that has been dyed black.

Good luck.

Frank Cerney

 

[BlindSquirrel]

Well, this is embarrassing but the color problems I had were entirely of my own making. For some reason, I had it in my head that I could use my resin pigments in silicone. Apparently, in reality, they are not compatible and you get translucent color as I so skillfully demonstrated.

After picking up some Sil-Pig (silicone pigment), a got a beautiful bright red by filling up the letters first and then back filling with the black. Once the track was glued together, it slid perfectly around the Robot's wheels.



Thanks everyone for the suggestions. They definitely got me thinking so that I finally arrived at a solution.

 

[EmmaInCandyland]

Looks amazing!!!!