DIY PLUMB BOB PLUS
That, plus the fact that outside air temperatures will affect the curing process made for alot of attempts. Once you add the coloring it throws off the catalyst ratio in unpredictable ways. I had to special order some green coloring because mixing the blue and yellow coloring that you can buy at Michael's simply does not work. UNFORTUNATELY, there is no rhyme or reason to the ratio mixing once you add coloring to the resin. Pictured is my first attempt, I suspended one of my sons lego men for extra flare.
I decided to play with the ratio of resin to catalyst first to see if I could get it right. The casting you will be doing for this is seven inches thick.
DIY PLUMB BOB CRACK
Too much catalyst and the casting will crack from the excessive heat. Too little catalyst and you end up with jello. The resin cures when you mix in a catalyst that starts a chemical reaction which heats up the resin and causes it to harden. All of the instructions and tips I found for it only included mixing instructions for castings of up to one inch thick. This stuff is mostly used for making little pieces of jewelry, or paper weights with objects suspended inside them. This was my first experience with Castin Craft clear resin. I figured the metal would handle the heat well. Also, once you add the catalyst to the resin it gets really hot. I'm sure there are other ways to make a mold this shape but I went with what I was familiar with. The silicon was mostly to prevent the liquid resin from running out of the mold. I applied some silicon to each flap and clamped them together. Put the form upright on a flat surface and lay a compass down next to it.Ĥ) There are two 1 inch flaps on either side so that there is something to help clamp the two halves together. NOT the angle between the two flat sides. When bending the metal it is important that you measure the angle of the BOTTOM of the pyramid to 120 degrees. The picture describes the basic layout of each half of the mold. The dimension I cam up with was a form the has 2 1/4" base widths and 6 1/2" centerline height.ģ) Knowing that this was going to be a form that was to be filled with a liquid I then extend the form height a little and scored a line where i would be filling the resin to, so that none of the resin overflowed. With a piece of paper and a compass I played with some dimensions until I came up with a size that looked right. I didn't do any fancy trig calculations to figure the angles out. I made two 6 side pyramids.Ģ) After looking at the SIMs literature that comes with the game discs I figured that the plumbob has a height to width ratio of about 3:1. There was a two part mold for EACH HALF of the 12 sided diamond. Unfortunately, because this is an after-the-fact instructable I do not have a picture of the actual forms I used for the 12 sided diamond but I will do my best to describe it.ġ) I used 26 gauge sheet metal because I am a sheet metal worker by trade and I am used to working with it. If I decide to make another one I will take all ideas into consideration. Financial considerations played a big role in some of the steps I took.
Note: There are deffinately things I would change with my design if I were to do it over. With this in mind I set out to create the awesomness that is before you. The crystal structure breaks up the light in a sparkle kind of way rather than a flat uniform color. To me, the SIM plumbob is a crystal that radiates light from the inside. My major gripe was the materials that were being used by others. Unfortunately i'm kind of arrogant, so I looked at all the well thought out, well intentioned designs and thought, I can certainly do that better. There were ALOT of helpful designs out there. I researched for hours the best way to go about this project. Being the dutiful husband I am I got to work. Two years ago my wife told me that she wanted to be a SIM for halloween.
0 kommentar(er)
