Mold making - My first casting

Casting is the process of sticking stuff in a mold and creating a copy of the thing the mold was originally made from.

I'll be using hot glue from a hot glue gun.

I spread a thin layer of soap over the mold to allow the mold to release. Using glue in something you hold pressed together for a while is perhaps a dodgy plan, but hopefully the soap will prevent it's sticking.

I filled both halves of the mold with glue, then pressed them together.

There was a bit much glue, and nowhere for it to go so the glue overflowed between the two halves of the mold.

In future it might be worth drilling a small hole to let out excess glue.

Other than that, it seems to have worked.

The excess was easy enough to trim with scissors.

Leaving a pretty good copy of the original.

Pictured is the copy after it had been heated with a flame to smooth it out a bit.









There were a few lessons learnt here.

a. If there is nowhere for the glue to escape, it attempts an escape between the molds.

b. If you try to mold hot glue in cold molds, it tends to set a bit too quickly mefore you can press the molds together properly.

c. a, and b above mean the copy can be taller than the original as the molds didn't press together completely and there was a gap. The resulting copy was taller than the original by the thickness of the overflow that had to be trimmed with scissors.

All in all a successful experiment.

Mold making - My first mold

I decided to use a failed handmade fishing lure as my first mold subject, not because I wanted copies of it, but rather because I didn't care if it was ruined. I'd make the mold out of plaster, and make the copy by molding some hot glue into shape.

I realized I needed some way of suspending the lure in mid air to make the first half of the mold. Last week I made a failed attempt at my fist mold. I used a bed of leftover mashed potato. By pushing the lure into a bed of mashed potato, it should have been possible to make the top of the mold, then turn it over and make the bottom.

This mold is to be in two parts. I figured the approach would be to find the halfway point of the object, build a box around it, and make it sit in plaster to that halfway point. Then when it was dry, I could build up some new walls, and fill that with plaster. The mashed potato method worked, but the old bag of plaster I had didn't. It never set. I'm guessing it was because it had too much exposure to moisture over the last few years. This time I'm all out of mashed potato, so I'll have to suspend it in mid air.

My first step was to coat the lure in lip balm to prevent it sticking to the plaster.

Lacking any telekinetic powers to speak of, my new approach was to suspend the lure a centimeter or so off the ground in a vice.

Next, I made a box out of foil to hold the plaster, and slipped it under the lure.

I mixed up some plaster and water until it looked about right. (I'll work out what the ratios of plaster to water should be when I look into this a bit more)
And poured plaster into the box until the level reached halfway up the model.

After only about a half an hour it was hard enough that I could touch it without leaving a mark, but it still felt wet and cold, so I thought I'd better leave it until it felt totally dry. So leave it I will.

Now the waiting. I'm still not so good at the waiting.

I really need to get better at the waiting.

Continued - part 2

WARNING !!! Plaster can get very hot when setting 

google search for: plaster of paris third degree burns

Handmade fishing lures - Single arc PVC and hot glue lure

I made another experimental lure yesterday. This time out of an arc cut from an 8 inch PVC pipe. I cut a section and ground it into the shape of a coffin lid. Then added some hot glue to the underside to give it a rudder. It was easily the quickest lure I'v made, taking only around 10 minutes from the time I thought of it to the time it was finished, and it shows. I added some red nail polish and some black marker lines to add some flash.

It looked like this.

From the side, you can see it still has that basic wing shape, but the bib is on the side rather than the front. There are a few lures on the market that employ this design, but I wanted to see how quickly I could make a cheap lure from scratch.













I added some split shot weights where the hooks would go and took it for a swim to see how it would perform. It did have a swimming action, but it was a lazy loping sort of thing that looked a little bored.

I think with a little design work and some testing time, it could end up being a good method of making quick and cheap lures. As with most things that can be made quickly, trial and error would soon arrive at a decent design.


But I'm not sure I care enough about this design to take it much further. I want to make something that looks great. I want people to gaze with wonder, and wonder "What master craftsman made such lures as those?" that will one day fill my tackle box. In short, I want someone to look at my lures and have lure envy, not a look of pity in their eyes.

I want someone to look at my lures and say "Wow!" not "Maybe!"

I'm going to have to make my lures look better, and while I'm at it I think they should swim better as well.

What I need is an idea.

Luckily, I have one.

Handmade fishing lures - Hot glue shrimp

Once upon a time in Japan, I happened across a man in a stall on the side of the road during some new years festivities. He was making animal shaped lollipops out of hot toffee. Each one took around a minute to make. They looked a bit like those glass collectible things that are all over the globe, but mounted on toothpicks. He was selling them to a stack of people three or four deep all waving wads of cash at him. They sold for around $10 each. He had a buddy handy to take the cash, so he didn't have to waste any productive time dealing with customers.

Sometimes it can take a few hours to do something that, with practice, you may one day be able to do in few minutes.

A week ago I had the idea that I might be able to make a lure from the plastic that my hot glue gun provides.

glue gun, plastic, and wire

I started with a glue gun, a small square of plastic (from the un-needed dividers in my new tackle box), and some wire.

In anticipation of this lure being too heavy at the back, I added two small lead weights by crimping them to the wire.

Reflective card 

I found some laser cut reflective card from some thoughtful person, who at some stage in the past, thought I was too sober, so bought me a bottle of wine.

Thanks.

I cut some bits out of the gift card to form the basic shrimp body shape.

half glue added to create basic shape

Next step was to build up a bit of hot glue to form the front and back, with the narrow waste I had a feeling might look like a shrimp.

finished shape

This looks a lot like a shrimp to me. It's surprising how easy this kind of thing is. I realize this in no masterpiece, but it's not as if I have any hot glue shaping skills here either.

The best thing about hot glue is you can heat it up over a flame and rework it.

This shape took about an hour of reheating, cutting bits off, and adding bits to replace the bits I just cut off.

finished hot glue glass shrimp lure 

With only a bit of imagination, it's possible to imagine this actually catching a fish.

Anyone paying more attention than they should, may notice that there are wire loops and a bib that give the impression that the lure would be towed from the front. But, after changing its shape a dozen times, I think this lure would work best twitched off the bottom, then allowed to sink back down. The fish would attack it as it sunk. To have it swim like a shrimp, it would need to be towed from the back, as when fleeing, shrimp panic backwards with flicks of their tail. The middle hook cluster would hang from the wire loop at the belly of the lure, but the hook that would be the rear should hang from the bottom of the front of the shrimp. In other words, that loop at the top, should be at the bottom.

The total length of this particular experiment is 95mm.

Solar hot water - New, bigger corflute collector

It's still a test, but I've started making my new, bigger corflute collector.

This time I'm using my new glue gun to make everything stick, and I'll be using two sheets of corflute glued on to the back of the collector as the insulation. By doing so I can make it a bit bigger than the first test, and make better use of my glass. I will glue the entire thing to the glass to give it some structure.

At the moment it's upright, full of water, and leaking all over my front steps.

It turns out making a solar hot water service involves an awful lot of water leaking out of stuff. In fact, generally speaking, I've noticed that a lot of my projects involve leaks.

This time I anticipated my poor craftsmanship, and held off on painting it until I had repaired the inevitable leaks. I've marked where the leaks are so it should be easy enough to fix them.

And I forgot to sand the surfaces so the glue would stick better. The hot glue gun glue sticks well to the corflute but does't seem to like the black hose. I suspect roughing up the surface a little will make it stick better.