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Arisia 2011
I had a blast at Arisia this year! I did 2 presentations: Vacuum Forming and Molding & Casting. Both were well received, so I call it a success.
I've got videos and the presentations to put online. The presentations are in Apple Keynote format so I need to convert them to something more portable, and the video right now is a bunch of raw HD footage that needs editing.
Thanks for coming! Feel free to say hello on Facebook!
Presentations
I don't profess to be an expert. This is based on my own experiences and experiments, and is not a be-all, end-all guide to anything. Also note the disclaimers about setting yourself on fire.
Panel Videos
Thermoforming: Bending Plastic to your Will
You can also check out the final test of the mini former. It's a bit more detailed look at the machine.
Also, make sure to visit the propmaking videos page to see more clips of the full sized former, painting and weathering, and other nerdtastic things.
Molding & Casting
Links
Resins and Silicones
- Reynolds Advanced Materials (also check out their store in Brighton MA. It's a bit hard to find, but worth the visit!)
In the panel we used Mold Max silicone and Smoothcast 300 resin. For my helmets, I use Rebound 25 to make the mold, Plasti-Paste 2 for the shell, and Smoothcast 65D for the casting. I used So-strong black tint in the resin with Cast Magic Silver Bullet to make the finished, silver Han in Carbonite at the panel.
Everything I used came from there: mixing buckets, stirrers, gloves, etc...
Plastics
I go to Laminated Plastics in Billerica for my sheets. I typically use HIPS in 0.080 or 0.125 thickness (0.125 = 1/8). The demonstration was with 0.040 HIPS.
Tools
Harbor Freight seemed to come up a lot, so I've included them.
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