Dead Oomoo

Is this progress?

I prepped the Shapeways printed faceplate for casting...both to save a back-up of a part that took not just fifty bucks to print, but a whole day to clean, and to practice molding on something simpler than the box.

Jolly King plasticine clay that must have been in the bottom of my Art Supplies box for decades (I switched to oven-hardening Fimo that long ago).  And a jolly time reading up to find out if it was sulfur-based and otherwise compatible with my Silicone molding rubber.  And even more time re-reading tutorials and the Prop-Makers handbook and planning how I was going to make the molds.

The (large) check for equipment rental I was expecting last Friday still hasn't come in, nor has the funds from selling off some old gear cleared PayPal.  So I used the very last of my cash to buy plastic cups (to measure and mix the molding and casting compounds) and petroleum jelly (as a mold release).

At which point I found out I'd totally forgotten Oomoo has a shelf life.  My nice big bottles of Oomoo-30 silicone casting rubber were nice big perfect interior casts of the bottles they came in.



More or less at the same time (you have to multi-task if you don't want to be wasting days sitting around waiting for paint to dry), I'd decided the vacuum fluorescent display sat too deep in the display hood to look right.

So I pried the top off the box and carved deep into the thing:

Until I had the display looking a little closer to how I wanted it:

And then started rebuilding the curves and reinforcing the now rather chipped balsa:

The standard formula Apoxie doesn't appear to grip balsa well until it is completely cured.  Unfortunately that lets out the golden carving time; when it is firm enough to get good detail but still soft enough you can carve into it with an X-acto knife.  Once it is completely set up it is about the hardness of soap stone...and over the next few days arrives at something a lot like granite.

So in my eagerness to get the shape re-refined, I'm trying some super-white instead (which otherwise is not my favorite).



At least I got one thing finished:  I decided against any inset for the injector port.  So that means finishing off the battery is the last task before the final coat of paint.  There are still some random little divots and seams but I've spent long enough on this one!

(Okay...maybe a couple of panel lines or something on the battery.  And perhaps some lettering..although I'd love to see if vinyl letters will stick to the mold, thus allowing me to cast them as incised letters...)