I was doing some reading on making molds to mold plastic parts, and it seems like it would be fairly straight forward to mold my own plastic parts.
I am thinking specifically of Estie jewels.
I can take a good jewel and make the mold out of plater of paris. Then it's just a matter of finding the right pourable plastic to use.
Any thoughts on this?
Full Version: Molding your own plastic cap jewels - anyone tried it?
James, I suppose you could try the clear acrylic found in hobby shops (like the stuff used for the bug-in-plastic paper weight). For casting a small item accurately, I think the dental impressioning materials would be a good choice here. PM me and perhaps I can help you out with this.
You might want to make the mold out of silicone rubber.
Making the full 3-D version was too chalenging for me, so I tried just the button, which could be poured 'open top' and then just popped out of the mold. For badly damaged jewels, my plan was to just glue them to the cap.
I tried Sculpey, Plasticine and Latex Mold casting material for the mold. Of course, the proper mold material worked best, but the others resulted in pretty good forms. If you were to try Plaster of Paris, you'd have to coat it with something to bring the surface to a smooth shiny finish, or the casting resin would soak in a bit requiring a huge amount of finishing on the jewel, and would make the mold a single use one.
Mold release agents are very useful - they are available usually where the resin is sold, but a good solid floor wax works pretty well too.
Actually, the most difficult part for me was getting the resin, coloring agent, hardener ratio right. I was probably trying to work with too small quantities of materials to get it perfect, and the amount of 'black' necessary to make the jewel appear like the original seemed to upset the hardner ratio necessary (for small highly tinted mixes you need *more* hardner).
I have a number of still slightly sticky jewel tops available, should anyone want to experiment...
If there are others with more casting experience, please pipe up.
Regards,
Gerry
I tried Sculpey, Plasticine and Latex Mold casting material for the mold. Of course, the proper mold material worked best, but the others resulted in pretty good forms. If you were to try Plaster of Paris, you'd have to coat it with something to bring the surface to a smooth shiny finish, or the casting resin would soak in a bit requiring a huge amount of finishing on the jewel, and would make the mold a single use one.
Mold release agents are very useful - they are available usually where the resin is sold, but a good solid floor wax works pretty well too.
Actually, the most difficult part for me was getting the resin, coloring agent, hardener ratio right. I was probably trying to work with too small quantities of materials to get it perfect, and the amount of 'black' necessary to make the jewel appear like the original seemed to upset the hardner ratio necessary (for small highly tinted mixes you need *more* hardner).
I have a number of still slightly sticky jewel tops available, should anyone want to experiment...
If there are others with more casting experience, please pipe up.
Regards,
Gerry
Yes, I got all the stuff from a hobby shop, obviously using an original as a pattern, with mixed results, but just another thing in pendom, I will return to at some point 
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