A friend had mentioned turning denim soaked in resin so one day when I was at my wife's store I asked her if she had any fabric scraps she wanted to get rid of. She pointed to a bag beside the garbage can and said "knock yourself out." I picked through the bag and grabbed all the shades of blue that I could find, along with some neon green for accent.
I mixed up some Alumilite Clear Cast and started dipping fabric. Did I mention it's a good idea to cut the fabric into strips first? Do that first. A little too narrow is better than too wide, and too short is better than too long. You need to be wearing disposable latex gloves for this, because you are getting your fingers right into the resin and saturating the fabric. Unless you want your camera buttons to have a permanent candy coating, you don't take pictures either.
Once I was done and had peeled the gloves off this is what I had.
24 hours later it came out of the mold looking like this. Not terribly promising, but...
Once it was turned it came out like this. There are a few small bubbles but overall I was really happy with it.
It turned more like wood than plastic. The shavings were more likely to break up rather than form strings like pure plastic usually does. If you look closely you can even see the weave of the fabric.
It takes a while to do this, about an hour or more to prepare the blank, but the results are worth it. I have already molded another one.
I mixed up some Alumilite Clear Cast and started dipping fabric. Did I mention it's a good idea to cut the fabric into strips first? Do that first. A little too narrow is better than too wide, and too short is better than too long. You need to be wearing disposable latex gloves for this, because you are getting your fingers right into the resin and saturating the fabric. Unless you want your camera buttons to have a permanent candy coating, you don't take pictures either.
Once I was done and had peeled the gloves off this is what I had.
24 hours later it came out of the mold looking like this. Not terribly promising, but...
Once it was turned it came out like this. There are a few small bubbles but overall I was really happy with it.
It turned more like wood than plastic. The shavings were more likely to break up rather than form strings like pure plastic usually does. If you look closely you can even see the weave of the fabric.
It takes a while to do this, about an hour or more to prepare the blank, but the results are worth it. I have already molded another one.
