Resin Casting Julie's Head and Hair
Health and Safety - Goggles, gloves and and resin masks should be worn when working with resin. It can be very irritable against skin and when in eyes. If does get in eyes, simply wash out with water or at the nearest eye cleaning kit. Overalls or aprons should also be worn when working with resin. Make sure to work in a a designated resin room with good ventilation. Scalpel blades and pliers are very sharp so gloves should be worn to stop any injuries.
- Fast cast resin (two parts)
- Silicone mould
- Pliers
- Scalpel
- Pliers
- Sandpaper
- Sellotape
As I am making my puppet faces interchangeable, I needed to cast a different face for every different facial expression. This is what I made my silicone mould for. I started by sellotaping my two piece silicone mould together, ensuring all the joins were sealed tight to stop any resin from leaking out. Sellotape works really well as it sticks to the silicone unlike duck tape and masking tape. When the mould was properly sealed, I then started to mix up the resin. Its a 1:1 ratio mix meaning that for the amount of part A, I had to match this with part B. Fast cast resin sets in about 4 minutes so its important not to mix too much at a time otherwise I wont be able to work quick enough to pour the mix into the mould.
For the two pieces of the hair, I used around 220kg of resin. Before pouring the resin in to the pour holes, I made sure that they were clear and wide enough to stop any blockages. I used a scalpel to widen the openings of some of the pour holes to make them more funnel shaped. With the hair, I poured only into the main pour hole which was placed in the centre of the inside. When the mould was full, the resin started to come out through the smaller holes. Using a small wooden dowel, I pushed into the smaller holes to make sure there were no blockages. I then topped the resin up more until there were little pools on the surface. These will be broken off later.
I then repeated these steps with the face mould. For the two pieces of the face I used about 60kg of resin. To make sure the resin had completely cured, I left the moulds for about an hour in a well ventilated room. I then took these out of their moulds and began to break away the resin from the pour holes. This was quite tricky as the resin is very strong but I found that used a scalpel and pliers worked quite well. It doesn't seem to sand down very easily but perhaps that because the sandpaper I was using wasn't corse enough.
