Gelatinous cubes

I acquired the following material: Super Sculpey from local artcraft shop. Envirotex Lite (1/2 gallon) from local artcraft shop. EasyCast Clear casting Epoxy (8 oz.) from local artcraft shop. Mold Max 30 (Trial size) from Smooth-On SuperSeal & Ease Release 205 Combo Pack from Smooth-On Lot of 100 2*4 Lego block from eBay GW/Citadel Green Ink Degasing apparatus, glassware, micropipets and electronic balance from the lab I work in... I started by sculpting by hands some Super Sculpey to the right dimension and shape so that it would fit nicely the DF 2 inches corridors (it took me 30 min and then I baked it for 30 min: I then assembled Lego pieces so that it would form a casing just the right size to encase the sculpt while balancing between the strength/thickness of the silicone mold and sparing the expensive silicone: I then put wide scotch tape on the inside of the Lego pieces to obtain a smoother mold (not sure it was necessary). I then used a piece of glass which I sprayed generously with Ease Release 205 to put underneath the casing. I coated the sculpt generously with SuperSeal, I've let it dry for 6 hours and then put it upside down into the mold casing. See Image 1 below Mold Max 30 is a super strength Silicone made of 2 parts that cures in about 45 minutes once mixed. You unfortunately need an electronic balance to mix the parts as it is done by weight and not volume (10 times part A to 1 time part B). Having never worked with this material before, I thought degassing Part A before the mixing with part B could be a good idea to save time: See Image 2 below It degassed a lot under vacuum. I then added part B and mixed both components for 10 minutes: See Image 3 below I then poured the liquid silicone around the sculpt until the level of silicone was flush with its base. I let it cured overnight. Unfortunately, I found the next day that degassing was not done properly and there were some bubbles trapped in the silicone mold. I proceeded anyway with the pouring of my first resin cast (Envirotex Lite mixed equals volumes of each parts; 80 ml supplemented with 20 ul of GW Green Ink). After overnight curing, the end result was the following: See Image 4 below I could see my fingerprints all over the cube, its green color was a little too pale for my liking and there was way too much bubbles trapped in it. I then decided to coat my original Super Sculpey sculpt with a light coat of Envirotex Lite to remove my fingerprints. I then prepared the cast of another silicone mold while degassing for 20 minutes once the 2 parts were already well mixed together. It turns out that the 45 minutes working time was long enough to do just that. After repeating this a few days, I was able to make a total of 4 silicone molds (only the first, top left on the picture, with a few bubbles and my fingerprints): See Image 5 below

biowizard Orc Posts: 283

Last Edit: 2012/03/31 13:12 By biowizard.Reason: to correct for image uploading The administrator has disabled public write access.

#45307
Re:Make your own Gelatinous cubes 6 Months, 1 Week ago   (It is really annoying not being able to edit your own posts while trying to post an image now properly formatted to be the right size...) Anyway, Here are the images that did not upload properly (hopefully). Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5	biowizard Orc Posts: 283
Last Edit: 2012/03/31 13:35 By biowizard. The administrator has disabled public write access.

#45308

Re:Make your own Gelatinous cubes 6 Months, 1 Week ago   I played around with degasing Envirotex Lite itself after it had been mixed but I found out that the quickest way to minimize bubble formation was to mix both parts very slowly so that bubbles are not formed in the first place. I also found out that 30 ul of ink per cube gave me the color I wanted. With my half a gallon of Envirotex Lite, I have been able to cast 18.5 cubes. A few times, the resin shrunk a little during the curing process which sucked air into the mold along a few corners. Perhaps this would not have happened if I had sculpted a cube with more rounded corners. I also found that pouring a little more of uncured Envirotex Lite into the mold about 15 minutes after the initial casting minimized this phenomenon. I also found that for some unknown reasons, about 20% of the cubes were still a little sticky even weeks after the original casting. Perhaps I had not mixed the 2 parts long enough? I am in the process right now of giving all my cubes a last coat of gloss varnish to give them a shiny/liquidy/slimy appearance and I think this will solve the stickiness problem. In testing different products, I also tried some EasyCast Clear casting Epoxy. It's about the same price per volume as Envirotex Lite (both expensive) and I did not experience any shrinkage/stickiness issue with it. I've cast 4 cubes with it with the amount of this resin I had and I can unfortunately no longer distinguish which 4 cubes of the 22 I have were done with this product. So, here's the final product: and All the cubes I made: