My hands are awesome! UPDATE............................

We got to the shop pretty early to cast up the painful mold of my hand we finished yesterday!
The redness on my arm was gone today from the instant hair removal. Gone, but not forgotten.

We did the pour in six stages per hand. There is undercuts everywhere in the mold, and I don't think we would be able to get all the air out of the mold in one shot. We slush cast each pour as we went.

We had zero air bubbles in the final cast. This sometimes can be a surprise, cause you never really know with a mold that has this many air-trapping pockets. The seam up the arm was not really much more than a bit of flashing, the alignment on the rubber was really good.

It wasn't until we had a cast part that I was able to physically see the reason for my painful de-molding experience! It seems the resin was strong enough to pull any of the hairs in the rubber mold right back out, and place them perfectly into the casting. Sorta gross really.

The next step of the build was to "meld" the hand and steering wheel into 1 object, so the hand and car become "one" We used epoxy putty for this step, as the working time is fairly decent, and it's extremely versatile.

Once we were happy with the overall shape of the "meld", I used crumpled plastic wrap to add the fine surface texture of skin. We let this set up for about 4 hours.

Using a Sharpie and a piece of 1/4" masking tape, I was able to lay out all the dimples that are found in the perforated racing leather they wanted. The layout took a very long time! After the layout was complete, we used a small drill bit in a manual drill to dimple the surface. 7 rotations per hole put the depth just right. This took even longer than doing the layout, mixed with the odd hand cramp.
Color aside, it's a bit weird to drill an exact duplicate, including hair, of your own hand.

Once we were done, it got a thorough cleaning with lacquer thinner, and a long bolt inserted into the "away from camera" side. This will let them mount the hands into grip stands on set.
We finished up with a few coats of satin black laquer, and set them aside to dry. Delivery first thing in the AM.

As soon as we drop these bad boys off, we're picking up our rental car, and heading down to New York. It's going to be great to go back to Techno CNC and see everyone. I'm really excited for their cnc sign making demo they're hosting on Friday!
Hopefully we'll see you there!!

8)
JO

Club-handed for the day!

With the steering wheel grips cast and cleaned up, it was on to the next part of the build. I can honestly say that I wasn't excited at all for this part. After spending some alone time with the steering wheel, I was able to determine the angle and grip I would be casting my hand in.
I decided that as my hands would be entombed for the better part of the day, we would do this portion at home. That way I could watch tv while the rubber and plaster were curing!

We did this the exact same way as we cast the steering wheel portions. The only difference is that for casting body parts, we had to use liberal amounts of release cream. This helps the rubber come off the skin easily, and keeps all my arm hair intact.................we'll see about that part!  First, the slimy, wet, cold casting rubber got brushed on. The first coat is always the slower setting silicone, this allows the rubber to pick up the most amount of skin detail.

GRRR.....HULK SMASH!

After about ten minutes, Jody brushed on the next 2 coats of the faster set rubber. It's right around this point that I am very aware of how hairy my arms actually are!

Once all the rubber had set-up, it was onto the plaster jacket. Jody did most of the work, but I was able to help with my left hand. Although I did hear mumbling under her breath as I tried to be helpful. It took awhile for the plaster to set-up well enough to try and remove the jacket. Way longer when you're down one arm, that's for sure.

In the end, the jacket came off easily, and we split the rubber off fairly easy. HOWEVER, it was the most painful mold I have ever made. I lost about half my arm hair in the mold rubber. In fact my arms are still really red.

So to all the leg waxing ladies in the world...I am truly humbled by your pain thresholds. I never want to do that again. I would shave my arms next time....oh why didn't I shave, why?

It pretty much took the whole day to make these 2 molds, so tomorrow we'll head back to the shop, and cast these up. I will say the molds look great though.......somebody call the vet, cause these puppies look sick!
8)
JO

Two Hands on the Wheel

Our current build is for an ad campaign. I can't mention the the details, but the build is proving to be fun!

We basically have to make 2 hands gripping the steering wheel of a car. The hands have to meld into the wheel like they are becoming one piece. Cool!
We only have to fabricate the hands and the leather wrapped portions of the steering wheel. The rest of the wheel will be comped in to the existing interior I think.

In the beginning, I was going to model and machine the 2 sections of the steering wheel, but we were able to get the proper steering wheel that's going to be used. It's always best when we can get the actual part someone needs!

I imagine that this wheel is fairly expensive, so we certainly don't want to damage it! I started off by masking the grip portions that we're interested in. The great part is that there is a natural seam line right at the part we need, so this makes things even better!

We carefully masked off the rest of the wheel. We will be using plaster bandages for this, and I didn't want to get any plaster on the wheel.

We started out by using some sulpher-free soft clay to create a mold flange on the inside of the wheel.
Although in a last minute decision, we scrapped this idea and decided to just coat the whole piece, an cut the rubber off after we were done.

Then it was off to the really messy task of brushing on the silicone rubber. We actually used 2 different rubbers for this. The first thin coat was done with a rubber that has a 10 minute kick time, then we backed it up with 2 coats of a 90 second rubber. The 90 second stuff was quite a bit more viscous and thus went on really thick, building up the rubber thickness pretty fast!
We let it set up for around 30 minutes.

The next step was to create the mold jacket. The whole point of the jacket is to add some rigidity to the very flexible rubber portion.

We kept adding quite a few layers of the plaster cloth, while creating a flange right around the center of the wheel. Once the tops of both sides where done, we flipped the wheel over, greased the flange with release cream, and plastered up the back side. This will allow us to separate the mold jacket from the wheel, then clam-shell the rubber portion back inside at casting time.

We decided to wait until Sunday morning before we popped the plaster off, letting it dry out as much as possible. Once we popped it apart, we carefully split the rubber off the wheel with an X-acto knife.
The inside of the mold looked great! And with brushing the rubber on, we had no air bubbles.

With the mold all re-assembled and clamped, we dammed up the two ends with clay, then slush cast the inside of the mold. The slush cast process really just means that we rolled the resin around inside the mold. This coats all the walls of the mold in resin. That way, if there is any trapped air when we do the fill pour, it won't affect the casting. I doubt the mold jacket will take much abuse, so I plan on doing this once!

The final cast came out great! There is a seam up the middle, but my hand will be covering most of it, so there will be very little cleanup in the end.

The mold captured all the stitching detail perfectly Any where the seam was seems like it will be covered anyway!

The next part is going to be fun! I think..................
8)
JO