Plan C

I wasn't getting the look I wanted through any of my original plans, so I knew I needed to sculpt exactly what I wanted.  I filled the cage with polymer clay and sculpted in the stress lines.

 I then ran a heat gun over the surface of the clay to secure the details.

Then I attached a pour spout to the design and poured a silicone mold.  That all went fairly smoothly.  I then cut the clay out of the cage and placed the empty cage back in the mold.  Now I need to find a silicone that I can inject into this mold that won't fuse to the mold walls.  If I conquer this hurdle the project might still be successful!

RTV Experiments

Last night I tried to make an RTV ball, let it set for a bit, and shove it into the cage while adjusting it to fit perfectly.  This was plan and, of course, it failed miserably.  I don't know why I just keep assuming everything will work out.  I thought it was the perfect plan.

 I documented the process of this neat two-part RTV gold.  You just spoon out equal parts of the two colors...

 ...and hand fold them into each other.

 Mix them until the color is consistent.

 Then I rolled out a ball of the material to the size I needed...

 ...and tried to fit it into the cage.  The damn stuff didn't flow in there as I had dreamed, and also set before I had it in how I wanted it.

 I had to cut the material out because it got so stiff.

So then I tried not mixing the material so consistently.  This greatly extended the working time but, in the end, it just didn't look how I imagined it.  It didn't spill out of the sides and was pretty dense when set.  I tried a couple iterations of this and moved on to Plan C (Plan A was the silicone disk).

Shapeways Order Arrives!

My Shapeways order got here yesterday.  Not much room for error but I'll take what I can get.  Only the Alumide model came, but that is the one I really wanted.  The Black Detail was just backup.  Let's hope I don't need it.

The mechanism is not as solid as I had hoped.  I'm afraid it will only get worse when I add the weight of the silicone to the cage portion.

 In the words of John Shea, "That's a neat little object."

Casting Silicone Disks

I used a smooth-on brand platinum silicone, added some black dye, and cast the material into bags that I secured closed with pipe cleaners.

The results are adorable little trash bag looking objects that would be great for my project, in theory.  They were ultimately not flexible enough to squeeze through the bars in the ring top.  Great experiment, though.

Material Samples

Here are some images of my samples.

 Paper

 Sugar

 Cork

 Resin

RTV silicone and silver clay

Laser Cutting

Here are some images from my laser cutting experience with the machine in room 2006.  I used African Padauk and it all turned out very brittle and not really wearable.  Looks lovely, though.

 

 

Reorder

I received an email, a week after placing my order with Shapeways, saying that my model could not be printed in steel.  I had a battle with myself and thought it would be best to just order the model again, but in a different material.  If I had changed the model and reordered steel, it would likely not have gotten to me on time for critique and it would have been a different, bulkier design.  I reordered on April 28th.