First prototype cast in Pewter 
After a lot of sanding and polishing I’m quite happy with it. The mold needs some work to make it easier to cast with but it looks like I’ll be able to run off copies easily enough for people
First prototype cast in Pewter After a lot of sanding and polishing I’m quite happy with it. The mold needs some work to make it easier to cast with but it looks like I’ll be able to run off copies easily enough for people
This looks ok but actually its reversed, the sticky side shouldnt face this way. Time wasted: 10 minutes to reload plotter and start again
After submersing the belt buckle in liquid silicone rubber and buggering off to cook some dinner I realised I’d put it in upside-down. Time wasted: 6 hours waiting for the rubber to cure so I can start again. Lots of rubber wasted
OH WELL ITS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE
The plastic that the buckle is made from is very absorbent so I cant just make a mold straight away, it has to be sealed first which means…. lots of spraypainting. Its had about 8 layers of primer and has been sanded after each layer with 320 grit sandpaper, the front now looks like its been molded in clay rather than the original “plastic dust blasted with a laser” look from before.
Next step is to let the paint cure and make a mold, luckily the Silicone has arrived so I can get started on that soon
I sent off the .STL file about 5 days ago and it arrived in the post today, hows that for service? Here’s the final print and original file for comparison
I’m amazed, its kept nearly all of the detail from the original design, some of the ringpiece has been lost but apparently I may be able to regain some of the detail by scrubbing it with a toothbrush.
Next step is to soak it in some sort of polyurethane resin (the plastic is quite a porous material), prime it then create a silicone rubber mold from it. I’ve got 1kg of pewter and 5kg of silicone rubber on the way, hopefully by the end of next week I’ll have solid metal versions of this. Might even consider listing them on Etsy if they come out ok 
I’m getting addicted to Shapeways, for those too lazy to click that link theyre a company that own a load of rapid-prototyping machines (or 3D printers for the dumbasses). They let you upload a 3D object from your pc and in 21 days they send it back to you made in glass, plastic or stainless steel. Its really rather good
So of course I’ve dug out an old copy of Blender and started playing about with creating something. First order of business, new ear-tunnels
I finally got round to installing Subversion on my webserver, seems to be rather cool
I bought a CraftRobo cutter thing as well, its pretty damned cool. The plan is to knock up custom business cards/bday cards/papercraft stuff. I’m amazed how fine it can cut things actually, I started cutting a gear-wheel pattern (which was meshed with other gears) and it didnt screw it up at all.
I’ve got some cunning plans for it coming up
The facebook tracker is now logging wlan macs and gps coords from my phone, I’m sorting out the wlan -> gps coord mapping page at the moment, using google maps. Its pretty cool, seems to be fairly simple to use
Originally uploaded by fridgehead
I’ve finished the first casting of the belt buckle, its not bad but ideally needs to be recasted. Firstly its a low temperature alloy thats lead-rich (which I dont really want rubbing againts me all day) and secondly the mould needs some work in places.
Still, not bad for a first go!
No sign of the audio chips for Simons Pissed yet, damn royal mail!
Originally uploaded by fridgehead
I’ve finally cut the mould open (using some curvy cutting cunningness so it fits back together properly).
Just another 24 hours to wait until I can talc it up and fill with metal
Originally uploaded by fridgehead
I’ve poured the second half of the belt buckle mould. 2 days to go and I can pull it apart
I’ve also got the ISP1740 IC’s on the way, damn website only sells them in chunks of 5, so thats 4 other random projects I need to think up :p
Originally uploaded by fridgehead
I’ve started the mold making process for the companion cube belt buckle. This is the first half of rubber poured, the next half will be done in about 24 hours time once this half has cured