Materials best resin to drill through

Actually, I'd just be interested in how one would drill through resin at all. Anyone have any tips or brands that they would like to share? Has anyone made a tutorial on this?

 

I second this :0 *curious*

 

NO resin is going to shatter like that except the kind specifically made to do that. n.n; If it's too thin, it'll crack, but usually it's more durable than that. I dropped Bastian off my balcony and he didn't even break an ear.

For hollow parts you make an inner casting part, not just drilling out the whole inside. Not only would you waste a LOT of resin, it'd take a long time and not be accurate. You don't want to do that for every part do you? ops:

As for trying to beat the price, that's probably not going to happen. :/ I've spent almost that much in cost so far casting my boy who's only 16 inches tall. The resin is only $20 a pint, as is the silicone.

I used two blocks of sculpey on my boy, which is about $20. Then I bought a heat gun so that I could do quick edits to my sculpt... that was $20. Sand paper ranging from 150 to 400 grit was about $5. Dremel was $30, the kit for sculpting bits was $30(which is cheaper than buying it alone), additional bits were $4.

Then for casting, i had to buy a glue gun, I got the cheapest one I could find, which was $4. I used recycled cardboard from boxes I've got laying around to build my mold, so that was free. I've spent about $300 on the silicone and resin so far. mostly silicone. You can get your original perfect, mold and cast it only to find that it's NOT perfect.. there are tiny imperfections and lines and seams and crease that you probably didn't see before. So you end up doing two molds. A junk mold, then you sand and perfect your parts, then a master mold. I'm getting ready to do all the junk molds hopefully this week. It's been a LOT of work. :{ Not that I don't enjoy it, or discourage anyone from trying...but it's not a cheaper way out I'm afraid. :/

If you really want a doll for cheaper, I'd say don't cast. Just make him or her out of super sculpey. It's not quite as strong or versitile, but it is a lot cheaper. :/


As for drilling, sanding and cleaning. Get a dremel and a pin vise. Pin vise is a tiny hand held drill. And a dremel... is well a dremel. You can get drill, grinders, sanders, and carving parts for them. It's really handy.

 

Yikes Batchick .. you are making me want to migrate to USA.
I wish stuff was as cheap in Australia as it is over there!! I've spent about $800 just on the silicon so far!!!!!
Kaye

 

arrrgh~ I get mine directly from Smooth-on... do you buy yours by the pint or the gallon?

 

If you're planning on casting an existing doll, don't expect to be able to post them on DoA, and CERTAINLY don't try to sell them. I'm pretty sure that breaks the copyright rule here on DoA.

 

update on drill bits for the arms and legs!

I thought I'd have to buy a $30 set of them from micromark, but I checked my local truevalue and they had the extra long, large drill bits! I got 5/34? I think? It's about 7 inches long. They had them up to a foot and a half long, and they were labeled as "Aircraft" drill bits. They run $5-10. I drilled out the Nephilim's neck and it works great!

 

I would also reccomend Sciplus even just because the prices are so good. I mean, worse comes to worse, you've only lost a few dollars on supplies, and I've only heard good things about them.

 

I buy the silicon in 5KG buckets. I think that's about half a gallon!!?


Kaye

 

So how much sillicone and resin do you use per doll casting? Obviously it varies by doll size, but I'm trying to collect as much information as I can get before I'm ready to cast so much as a pinkie finger.

Also, what fillers if any do you use?

 

:P Once your mold is finished, you won't have to use silicon every time you cast your doll.

 

You need a lot of silicone and resin to begin with. For bastian, who is a hound/sd13 sized head it takes me a pint and a half of silicone to mold his head, core mold, and mold cap. I molded his head twice, a junk mold and then a final mold... which you pretty much have to do for everything. As nice and careful about sanding stuff smooth as you try to be, most of the time there's dents and scratches that you just didn't notice.

as for fillers, they're not really needed. If you really wanted to on a larger doll you could to save resin, but I don't see that it's must.

 

I've no idea how to convert metric into US weight but for a complete doll I have used 2 x 5kg buckets of silicon and waiting for a 3rd bucket so I can complete the molds so that's 15KG of silicon. I've made 2 sets of molds (for the same reason Batchix makes 2) and I have made a few (well, lot's really) of mistakes so had to remold some of the pieces!! Without the mistakes I would guess 10KG would be enough for 2 sets of molds.
It takes me about 1 and a half KG of resin to cast a doll.

 

5kg comes out to about 11 pounds... sorry, I'm unable to convert it to gallons... specifically as I'm not sure how much the silicon would weigh in volume.

On a side note, I've been given a complete list of Alumilite's prices for their products.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea which of these products would suit me best, and how much I would need.

 

Thankyou . I'm planning to make a tumbling device for casting. I reckon I can build it from acrylic + some of that glue that welds and holds up for well over 1000lbs. Add some ball bearings and a crank, and well, it should be a lot easier on my arms and shoulders than my other cheap option.

Right now, going back and forth between 3 different projects. Living in an apartment sucks donkey butt, when you wanna finish something that requires the use of power tools but it's after 11:00pm . One's the doll, one's a spinning wheel, and one's a digi-painting(so I can have something quiet to do in the wee hours). So if it looks like I'm asking tons of questions(I am) but not sharing anything, well, it's cause I keep finding time at the wrong hour . Oh well.