The Sandman's Ruby (Dreamstone Pt.2)

OK, so I've never tried to reproduce 'sturdy glass' before, and even fake gemstones are something I've considered to be too heavy in large sizes for anyone to wear all night, unless you are Mr. T of course.

I had some clear resin from Alumilite lying around, and in a moment of craziness decided to see if I could rapid prototype a Dreamstone from a basic mold and cast process of the simplest variety.

Starting with the foam board I glued together from the last post, I manually cut down the edges with an Xacto blade to the best of my steady-hand ability (beer may have been required to steady that hand), and then used some clay to fill and roughly smooth down the edges.

Once done, I then whipped up a quick box, applied some Vaseline to the surface of the prototype gem shape as a release agent (it was lying nearby from a previous life cast I had done), and poured myself a concrete mold.

Not bad, not bad at all, but I could already see some potentially hazardous and troublesome undercuts, nonetheless I pressed on. I mixed up my clear resin, put a thin red wash of 'paint' in there, and 'Slush cast' the resin around the inside.

It was only a minute or two into this process that I realised I hadn't released the mold, which meant I'd probably be having a nightmare trying to get the resin cast out of this. It's OK, it's not like the release agent was nearby or anything, like a whopping mile or something... oh wait...

Well, that's what excitement and enthusiasm gets you, hasty mistakes! Either way I wasn't too bothered I was going fast anyway, just checking viability.

I was right, getting the resin cast out of there was a nightmare, and a feat of strength, but after a bit of warping it came out and i was able to roughly put it back into the right shape. Several things were apparent:

1. A vacuum former would be awesome.
2. The Vaseline layer that released the foam from the concrete was clearly too thick/course, and this transferred all the way to the final cast, the pattern was evident on the resin.
3. In that regard, if casting in resin, I'd have to do a lot of work buffing the positive I was going to cast into almost perfect shape, or find some way of polishing the final cast down smooth.
4. The colour transferred well, will have to go bolder, and look into resin dyes.

Good test, next time, I'll probably use wood, sanded down to good angles, followed by perhaps a filler layer smoothed down very fine, and topped with resin to give it a polished surface before casting. I'll use a spray release to prevent any unusual transfer, and slush cast as I did before.