View allAll Photos Tagged moldmaking
Scale model color corrected from the previous photo. The first time I downloaded this I didnt realize I had color correction on the scanner! www.flickr.com/photos/8331880@N02/3600447061/
Some more models rndmodelshop.com/
Now we can see the window frames and stucco detail a little better. The window to the right over the door has an organic stain glass pattern to it. The double window below has a diamond criss cross in it. The doorknobs themselves are the heads of nails, the rust color is.. well.. rusty nail heads!
As an experiment I tried different patterns for each of the windows. I made wood masters, poured silicone rubber molds, then 2 part resin parts. It saves alot of time re-making components for other houses.
Roughly 24 inches tall mounted on a round base, interior lit. Please see the other photo in the stream that gives the scale better :)
All wood & rigid material construction. No clay, foamcore, card stock, fimo, super sculpey, etc..
1/2" Scale miniature, shot up on a hill against natural sky & distant landscape. White bounceboard for shadow fill, no flash. Almost 2' tall, wood construction, cast resin details, and polyester resin for stucco like textures. This was a piece for a private collector.
These scale models are also ideal for G-scale garden railroads, part of a European Village.
I've never made a mold before, but I found a very good tutorial online: www.b9robotresource.com/molding1.htm so I decided to see if I could reproduce the "Create-a-Monster" torsos. The results are not 100% perfect, but I'm quite proud of how I did for my 1st time.
EDIT TO ADD: I used the "Smooth-On" Pourable Starter kit: www.dickblick.com/products/smooth-on-starter-kits/#photos (it was $52 at the Blick store, $46.33 online but you have to pay shipping) I picked this brand specifically because it does NOT need an air compressor. There is enough molding rubber left over to make another mold (I might try shoes) and there is enough of the casting resin to make (I would guess) about 15-20 torsos, or a bunch of shoes.
PS: Please do not PM or comment to ask me to sell you a torso, I don't want to break flickr's TOS.
Made on a whim to test my moldmaking skills. Also because my sister wanted one in blue.
Man are these things hard to take good pictures of...
Made on a whim to test my moldmaking skills. Also because my sister wanted one in blue.
Man are these things hard to take good pictures of...
And here is the completed look. The legs, head and wings (which I didn't photograph here) all fit perfectly onto the torso and stay on. The arms are a different matter. I had to paint a bit of clear nail-polish onto the shoulder peg to keep it from falling out. It makes it a bit more difficult to rotate the arms, but since I don't plan to really "play" with the doll, so it works for my needs.
PS: Please do not PM or comment to ask me to sell you a torso, I don't want to break flickr's TOS or get into trouble with Mattel.
1" Scale Model based on some buildings I photgraphed in Atlantic City. The shell is plywood, brickwork cast resin from silicone molds, turnings from a minature lathe.
The side is open for a hinged glass frame to see interior. It's primer grey to find any places that needed filling and to prep for final painting & age weathering.
Men pose in their work areas at the Standard Pattern Works in York, Pennsylvania, sometime early in the twentieth century.
As Wikipedia explains, "In casting, a pattern is a replica of the object to be cast, used to prepare the cavity into which molten material will be poured during the casting process.... The making of patterns, called patternmaking..., is a skilled trade that is related to the trades of tool and die making and moldmaking, but also often incorporates elements of fine woodworking."
2008, cast Sterling Silver. This piece was stolen from my home on 4-18-09 in a residential burgelry.
Finishing with a 0.4 mm diameter end mill (Hanita 7N2200410RJ). This step takes another 30 minutes.
Speaking of cutters - when working in non-abrasive prototyping boards, carbide end mills last for several hundred hours of machining - that is, unless you drop it on the floor, or mess up your toolpaths and crash it into the workpiece.
Working hard on our studio to offer new resin colors! :) ---- Trabajando duro en nuestro estudio para ofrecer nuevos colores de resina :D
Early stages of the half timbered crooked organic storybook effect. Balcony, stairs, shutters, entry bridge roof & shingles yet to be installed. The tower has the slightest convex curve to it, not a flat consistent slope like a typical lighthouse. This would be the front view (entrance side) with the ocean behind it. Other photos show better detail of crumbled brick and mortar effect. The entire structure is hollow to be lit internally.
Put the straight edge back in the toolbox! This is all done in Crooked Keebler Geppetto Old World Storybook style. Actually takes more work because every table saw cut is a straight line and needs to be distressed & bent for the lines to flow like a freehand sketch.
Large scale buttons. These are going to be used to make molds so I can make multiples. For scale, the button in the middle with rings is approximately 1 3/4 inch, 4.5 cm across.
Eyes!! *.*
About a year ago I prepared my own doll eyes prototypes - that was a lot of work - sanding, primering and polishing! Once they were ready I made my first silicone molds and resin casts which I packed neatly and took with myself to Iceland where I stayed for some time with my friend Bjarney (who is multitalented musician, but also dolls enthusiast and eye maker!). We have spent some evenings sitting in her cosy place and making doll eyes using her materials - that was the time I made my first steps in eyes making! When I came back to Poland I had so much to do with my life and forgot how much fun eyes making was to me.. Some time ago I spontaneously decided to make my own doll (which was always my biggest dream!) and along with this idea I decided to make my own doll eyes again! Here are the pictures of the first steps - making the silicone molds and then casting the eye bases in white resin. Now I'm impatiently waiting for the clear doming resin and some other supplies I ordered, so I could continue! 😍 I'm super excited for the things happening in my workshop these days!!
Thank you for reading this - I hope you enjoyed my little icelandic-polish story and the pictures!
1" Scale storefront miniature.
Brick and stone cast resin from silicone molds. This model has fiber optics that chase in sequence along top decorative facia board and leading edge of the balcony. The interior is open for viewing thru a glass window on the side.
Based on elements from several brick buildings I photographed around Atlantic City.
A close-up of the mold for the steering linkage, straight off the mill. A good way to examine the surface finish and edge definition of RenShape 460.
Moldmaking must be one the most boring things ever... I wonder if I could hire somebody to do this for me ;)
Oh well, I guess this is just one of those things I need to do, no matter how I dislike it. (And I suck! So many plastermolds already gone terribly wrong... Well, I am still learning... )
Same as before, in a configuration that allows it to make point turns (one of the key points of the linkage).
Finished mold, freshly off the milling machine. Total processing time is about one hour. Other than blowing off dust, there is no further postprocessing / finishing involved.
The workpiece is recycled from a previous project, hence the assortment of weird markings on the top surface.
Estimating generously, the volume of the prototyping board removed in the cutting process or not reusable for other purposes is about 150 ml - a cost of about $1.00.
A quick rendering of the finished planetary gearbox with a (temporary) output attachment. The motor is Mabuchi RF-300FA-12350, which retails for about $1.50.
The ratio for this gearbox is 1:125, and the torque at stall should be over 4,000 g*cm.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, IPA: [ˈjʉrʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.
Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting crashed. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awards the Yuri A. Gagarin Gold Medal in his honor.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino, near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death). His parents worked on a collective farm: Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and bricklayer, and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a milkmaid. Yuri was the third of four children: older brother Valentin, older sister Zoya, and younger brother Boris.
Like millions of people in the Soviet Union, the Gagarin family suffered during Nazi occupation in World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow, and an officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family was allowed to build a mud hut, approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside, on the land behind their house, where they spent a year and nine months until the end of the occupation. His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943, and did not return until after the war in 1945. In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.
In 1950, Gagarin entered into an apprenticeship at age 16 as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy Steel Plant near Moscow, and also enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh grade evening classes. After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in moldmaking and foundry work, he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors. While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet at a local flying club, where he learned to fly — at first in a biplane and later in a Yak-18 trainer. He also earned extra money as a part-time dock laborer on the Volga River.
SOVIET AIR FORCE
After he graduated from the technical school in 1955, the Soviet Army drafted Gagarin. On a recommendation, Gagarin was sent to the First Chkalov Air Force Pilot's School in Orenburg, and soloed in a MiG-15 in 1957. After graduation, he was assigned to the Luostari airbase in Murmansk Oblast, close to the Norwegian border, where terrible weather made flying risky. He became a Lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces on 5 November 1957; on 6 November 1959 he received the rank of Senior Lieutenant.
SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM
SELECTION AND TRAINING
In 1960, after an extensive search and selection process, Gagarin was chosen with 19 other pilots for the Soviet space program. Gagarin was further selected for an elite training group known as the Sochi Six, from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. Gagarin and other prospective candidates were subjected to experiments designed to test physical and psychological endurance; he also underwent training for the upcoming flight. Out of the twenty selected, the eventual choices for the first launch were Gagarin and Gherman Titov due to their performance during training sessions as well as their physical characteristics — space was limited in the small Vostok cockpit, and both men were rather short. Gagarin was 1.57 metres (5 ft 2 in) tall.
In August 1960, when Gagarin was one of 20 possible candidates, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:
Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.
Gagarin was also a favoured candidate by his peers. When the 20 candidates were asked to anonymously vote for which other candidate they would like to see as the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin. One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused, and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.
Gagarin kept physically fit throughout his life, and was a keen sportsman. Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky wrote:
Service in the Air Force made us strong, both physically and morally. All of us cosmonauts took up sports and PT seriously when we served in the Air Force. I know that Yuri Gagarin was fond of ice hockey. He liked to play goal keeper... I don't think I am wrong when I say that sports became a fixture in the life of the cosmonauts.
In addition to being a keen ice hockey player, Gagarin was also a basketball fan, and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.
VOSTOK 1
On 12 April 1961, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft with Gagarin aboard was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Gagarin thus became both the first human to travel into space, and the first to orbit the Earth. His call sign was Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).
The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:
Korolev: "Preliminary stage..... intermediate..... main..... lift off! We wish you a good flight. Everything is all right."
Gagarin: "Поехали!" (Poyekhali!—Let's go!).
Gagarin's informal poyekhali! became a historical phrase in the Eastern Bloc, used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age in human history.
In his post-flight report, Gagarin recalled his experience of spaceflight, having been the first human in space:
The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended.
Following the flight, Gagarin told the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that during reentry he had whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает"). The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky.
Some sources have claimed that Gagarin commented during the flight, "I don't see any God up here." However, no such words appear in the verbatim record of his conversations with Earth-based stations during the spaceflight. In a 2006 interview, Gagarin's friend Colonel Valentin Petrov stated that the cosmonaut never said such words, and that the quote originated from Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU about the state's anti-religion campaign, saying "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there." Petrov also said that Gagarin had been baptised into the Orthodox Church as a child, and a 2011 Foma magazine article quoted the rector of the Orthodox church in Star City saying, "Gagarin baptized his elder daughter Yelena shortly before his space flight; and his family used to celebrate Christmas and Easter and keep icons in the house."
AFTER THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM
Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program. The announcement on the Soviet radio was made by Yuri Levitan, the same speaker who announced all major events in the Great Patriotic War. Gagarin became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, and a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. Moscow and other cities in the USSR held mass demonstrations, the scale of which was second only to World War II Victory Parades. Gagarin was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, by Nikita Khrushchev.
Later on, Gagarin toured widely abroad. He visited Italy, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Egypt and Finland to promote the Soviet Union's accomplishment of putting the first human in space. He visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.
The sudden rise to fame took its toll on Gagarin. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations where he was always expected to drink. Gagarin was also reportedly caught by his wife in a room with another woman, a nurse named Anna who had aided him after a boating incident earlier in the day, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961. He attempted to escape by leaving through a window and jumping off her second floor balcony, hitting his face on a kerbstone and leaving a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.
In 1962, he began serving as a Deputy to the Soviet of the Union, and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963. Soviet officials tried to keep him away from any flights, being worried of losing their hero in an accident. Gagarin was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov in the Soyuz 1 flight, which was launched despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary. When Komarov's flight ended in a fatal crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.
On 20 December 1963, Gagarin had become Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base. Two years later he was re-elected as a deputy to the SSSU, but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities. Next year he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot. On 17 February 1968 he successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration, passing with flying colors.
DEATH
On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, he and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and the ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.
Gagarin was survived by his wife Valentina, a graduate of the Orenburg medical school; and two daughters, Yelena (born 1959) and Galina (born 1961).
CAUSE OF JET CRASH
The cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is not entirely certain, and has been subject to speculation about conspiracy theories over the ensuing decades.
Soviet documents declassified in March 2003 showed that the KGB had conducted their own investigation of the accident, in addition to one government and two military investigations. The KGB's report dismissed various conspiracy theories, instead indicating that the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information, and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded that Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude to be higher than it actually was, and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.
Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft. A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.
On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said that they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.
In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. Those documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had maneuvered sharply either to avoid a weather balloon, leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions," or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover".In his 2004 book Two Sides of the Moon, Alexey Leonov, who was part of a State Commission established to investigate the death in 1968, recounts that he was flying a helicopter in the same area that day when he heard "two loud booms in the distance." Corroborating other theories, his conclusion is that a Sukhoi jet (which he identifies as a Su-15 'Flagon') was flying below its minimum allowed altitude, and "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier." The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov believes the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier, and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing. In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said that a declassified report on the incident revealed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. Leonov states that this aircraft had descended to 450 metres and that, while running afterburners, "the aircraft reduced its echelon at a distance of 10–15 meters in the clouds, passing close to Gagarin, turning his plane and thus sending it into a tailspin – a deep spiral, to be precise – at a speed of 750 kilometers per hour." As a condition of being allowed to discuss the report, however, Leonov was required to not disclose the name of the Su-15 pilot, who was reported to be 80 years old (as of 2013) and in poor health.
WIKIPEDIA
Rough machining of the mold for gearbox components on Roland Modela MDX-540 in Huntsman RenShape 460 prototyping board, with a 3 mm diameter square end mill (Hanita 402403000) at 12,000 RPM.
This step requires about 30 minutes to complete. See this doc for more about the use of CNC mills in hobbyist work; dimensional accuracy is showcased here. This particular CNC machine is stupidly expensive, but many equally suitable units are available in the $600 - $4,000 range (example).
The ongoing maintenance costs for a mill are fairly negligible when working in non-abrasive plastics: about the only part close to a "consumable" is the ball-bearing spindle, which should last for at least 2,000 - 5,000 hours.
After lengthy deliberation, I decided to use a more revealing color scheme for the final assembly: a translucent turquoise body (solvent blue 70) with opaque, cerise gears (quinacridone pink). There is no real justification for this, other than the looks.
In case you are keeping score: including the price of molds, the cost of the entire batch is $3.20, or less than 17 cents per part. Subsequent copies made using the same mold obviously bring the price down.
(This photo shows all the parts with the post-casting film removed.)