Three day weekends are good -- I get to catch up a bit on projects.
Saturday, of course, was a Trail build day... and we got a handful of newcomers, which is good. I gave a nice speech and we got some construction and painting accomplished.
Tonight is a weeknight build, and Marla and Jazz will be overseeing it. I hope it goes smoothly for them!
On Sunday and Monday (mostly Monday) I was making mother molds and experimenting with mold releases. I now have mother molds for the heart, brain, and the big arm. I've also split the heart and brain, using differrnt approaches, and am in the process of splitting the arm.
Sunday was divided up by a party at noon, followed by my putting the edit notes into my manuscript and sending it to England via electronic means.
There are two alternative mold releases that have been working for the plasti-paste to polyurethane interface. One is a clear acrylic spray followed by a layer of graphite, sealed in place with a second layer of acrylic. Topped off by silicon release for good luck. This works okay.
The really AWESOME release is made out of sculpey dissolved in orange oil. This gets painted on in a thing layer, and is only good if you don't care to keep the surface texture. But it releases amazingly well. Definitely a keeper.
Today I'll be ordering some more of the proper release agent, so when I cast poly into the poly molds, they will pop out again.
As to the cutting of the molds, the brain was cut transverse to the mother mold, to see how that works. I think it will work, but just barely. The heart I cut in a more traditional manner, parallel to the mother mold seam, but offset by about a quarter inch. This looks like it will work better.
Both the brain and heart mold could have been a bit thicker in places. I fear they won't hold their shape as well as I would like in the thin bits. I thought I had put on five layers, but I only count four. Ah well.
Today I need to whip up an outline and locate some references for my class's speech assignment. Ugh.
Now to find some more coffee.
Posted by Edwin at September 7, 2004 07:41 AM