I've been wanting to get into mold making and casting for at least a year. I just wasn't sure how to get started. I finally took the plunge with this kit from smooth-on.com.
I did this at last weeks HackRVA Saturday hackathon, which happened to be the "Make your Spirit Animal" event held by WoHack.
I wasn't sure what to cast, or what to make my spirit animal... then I remembered my "meg" tooth. Therefore my "spirit animal" or as what spectators rephrased as my "power beast" became the Megalodon. And I cast the tooth right up.
Smooth-On.com is a go-to site for learning how to cast things. They have tons of how-to videos. For me it was almost overwhelming. I finally settled on the starter kit linked above.
My lessons learned where:
1) Mix in a bigger container. When you put the rubber silicone mold material together, you have to stir slow and methodical. You also have to get it to blend completely, leaving a pure purple from the pink and blue compounds combined. I lazily tried to mix them in a narrow container and left some material not mixed. The mold turned out fine, but I would have done better with a large container.
2) The plastic casting material sets up fairly quick, and gets hot. Nothing went wrong there, but if I'd walked away from it, my solution would have solidified before I had a chance to pour. And like I said, it gets pretty hot. Don't be surprised.
The cast came out great. So detailed that I could see the grain of the tooth's enamel decay.
For more pics, check out after the break. Looking forward to more mold making and casting experiments at HackRVA.
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