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Attempting casting resin in two colors, part two

12/30/2018

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silicone rubber canine jawset










I don't remember what inspired me to make the upper half of a jawset out of blue silicone rubber, nor what inspired me to use it as a window cling in the dining room. However seeing it hanging there gave me a new idea to try for a two part mold. So here goes!
Below, cutting the teeth away from the rubber jawset as neatly and carefully as possible, and then cutting holes through the entire thickness of the piece. Then, inserting it back into the original mold. The idea is to pour white resin into the mold for teeth, remove the blue part, and then pour pink resin for the gums.
Making a mold for a resin canine jawset
Making a mold for a resin canine jawset
Casting a resin canine jawset in two  colors


​Here goes nothing! The white resin is poured into the mold. (The mold on the left hand side is for claws.)

Casting a resin canine jawset in two colors






​The blue mold piece is removed, leaving the white teeth in the translucent mold piece.








Pouring the pink resin into the mold. It overflowed a little to one side, not a big deal as it can be trimmed off after it sets up.
Casting a resin canine jawset in two colors
Below, the final product. Not too bad. (Tangent alert- the stuff that looks like pink slime is in fact pink slime. When resin is overloaded with colorant it will not cure properly. I was using Smooth-Cast 65D here, a white resin, and I had to put in too much colorant in order to get a color other than very pale pink. The saints at the Smooth On tech support department recommended I switch to a transparent resin, Color Match 325, which I did.)
Resin canine jawset in two colors overloaded with pigment
After I made a bunch more of these I decided this method may  not  be everything I hoped it would be. Sometimes pink resin would leak down over the white teeth and while I could carefully scrape it off before the resin set completely, this was something I'd rather not spend my time doing. Also, I would  get thin spots or bubbles between the teeth and the gums at times, which would make for weak castings (I could crush in these spots with my fingers) which was definitely something I did not want. Time to try another method. Onwards!
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Attempting casting resin in two colors, part one

12/29/2018

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Resin canine  jawset cast in two colors


So I was unenamoured with airbrushing, at least when it came to painting jawsets, and I decided to attempt to cast them in two different colors of resin. The saints at the Smooth On tech support department recommended I pour one color of resin over the other before it had a chance to set up fully.To the left, the result. Um, no.
 Some sort of two part mold would seem to be the answer, one for the teeth and the other for the gums. My first thought was to cut the teeth out of a resin jawset with my Dremel, insert them back into the original mold, and make a model of just the gums from which to make a second mold. Below, getting ready to pour silicone for the model.
 Casting jawset parts in silicone rubber
 Casting jawset parts in silicone rubber
Casting a jawset model in silicone rubber






Removing the cured rubber from the mold, with the teeth still attached. It would appear I have my model from which to make a mold for the gums. (The fabric was added while the rubber was curing, so that I'd have something to glue the models down to the mold board with afterwards. It wouldn't work so well to just glue the silicone to the mold board, as cured silicone doesn't stick to much of anything.)









Here goes nothing! Pouring the silicone over the models for the new gum mold. (The snaky thing on the far right is an attempt at a lip.)
 Casting jawset parts in silicone rubber
Making molds for jawset parts from silicone rubber
Below, pink resin gums cast from these new molds, with teeth inserted temporarily. Looks pretty good but....
Resin canine jawset cast in two colors

Damn. The round thing in the middle is leftover resin that cured in the mixing cup. See how nice and smooth it is? See how full of bubbles the gums are? There's lots and lots of things that cause bubbles in castings but here it's due to replicative failure. Each time I demold rubber from rubber, microscopic layers peel away from the surface, creating these bubbles in the mold. (Even if I'm using plenty of release. Which can also cause bubbles, damn!!) Three times I poured rubber into rubber to make these, adding more bubbles with every step.
Bubbles in cast resin
What to do next? Maybe at some point in the future I could investigate stronger rubber, but in the meantime, maybe I should go back to making molds from original sculpts whenever possible. 
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Airbrushing fails

12/28/2018

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Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing
Canine Resin jawset being airbrushed








Ah, trying to airbrush jawsets with white teeth and pink gums. Much easier said than done. First, the paint has to stick. Second, it has to go where you want it and not where you don't.


If there is even a trace of release on the cast forget it, the paint will not stick. The good news is, resin cast into silicone rubber doesn't really need release! Yay! Unfortunately the paint doesn't like to stick to bare resin either, and according to the saints at Smooth On Technical Support there are very few primers that will help. One is the Bulldog Adhesion Promoter shown here. The other is Plasticote Sandable Primer Enamel.


The areas where paint is not wanted need to be masked. What to use? Liquid frisket came first to mind, here applied with silicone shaper tools. (The frisket would quickly ruin a regular paintbrush.) For me, this was very tricky and took several hours to apply. I only attempted masking the teeth with the frisket, as I was completely daunted by the much larger surface area of the gums.

.




Below, the gums airbrushed and the frisket removed.
Airbrushed canine resin jawset
Not too bad, except that the paint was still fairly fragile and the frisket would pull bits of it off around the gumline. I was not convinced this would be the go to method.
Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing
Canine resin jawset being airbrushed
Airbrushed canine resin jawset






I hit the airbrush forums looking for a mask less fiddly than frisket, and found.... Poster Putty.



















Not bad, but not great either. The putty more or less worked, but the gumline was messy, and I'd like to avoid this much touching up with a paintbrush if at all possible.




And back to the message boards. Another recommended masking material- SIlly Putty!!
Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing with silly putty





It kinda worked, but....
Airbrushed canine resin jawset
The paint built up around the edges of the putty and left these unattractive ridges along the gumline, which no amount of touching up with a paintbrush is going to fix! The message boards warned of this.
Paint ridges on an airbrushed canine jawset

 Below, various airbrushing attempts, in various states of completion.A big fat pile of frustration.
Airbrushed canine resin jawsets
Some of these are solid pink plastic, with the teeth airbrushed white; some of these are white plastic with the gums airbrushed pink. Ultimately, though, I was not happy with the durability of the airbrushed paint- even with the primer, and even sealed with a topcoat afterwards, it was too easy to scratch and damage. Maybe there is a method I hadn't discovered yet to make the paint more durable, but for the moment anyway I am SO DONE  airbrushing these things for sure. On to plan B, attempting to cast in two colors of plastic!

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    I make masks. Because art is more fun when you put it on your head.

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