Pottymouth Droid

[joewhite]

Hehe! Yeah, they work great!

So, I just poured my first tire test piece. I'll post the results...

Joe

[joewhite]

Sorry for the crappy photos...the lighting in my house and my camera suck!

I got an itch to test out the resin and decided to pour a wheel. I mixed too much but luckily all the molds are pretty much done (just need the arm) so the eye mold was nearby.

I don't know if you can tell but my pour was a success!!!!! The wheel is hollow and solid...all by hand! I even inserted the proper rod so that it can free spin when assembled to the struts. The flash is super thin and all was taken off by hand. Light sanding is all that's needed there!

The eye piece had a bunch of bubbles on the underside. Fortunately, though, all the bubbles gathered at the center where it will be drilled out anyway for lighting!

The tire had some tiny bubbles but honestly, it's worthy enough for the first kit!

I'm so happy. I will play with my camera for some better shots!

Joe

[twidjet69]

When will you start taking pre orders for this model?

[joewhite]

Soon, hopefully.

I ran into trouble with my mold. I'm pretty proud of it being, that it is my first time doing a 3-part mold, but I had one minor leak in an area. The leak caused one area to be 1-2mm thicker than the other side. Not too noticeable but it wasn't sitting right with me. I then came into contact with a caster who's turning out to be a cool guy. We've been looking things over to get a better mold. One thing decided was to gut the body and ditch the rotocast. In the process I dipped the body in Castro Purple and stripped all the primer so that I could fill some hollow areas with resin to prepare it for some pressurizing.

I'm currently adding primer and filling in any seams or blemishes and making the master mold friendly. So, all in all, we will be pressurizing the silicone and resin for some better quality parts than what I was hoping to achieve myself.

Thanks for all your patience....I'll keep ya'll posted!

Joe

[joewhite]

So, I have good news. I mentioned earlier that I had to re work the body. I wanted to shed some light on what caused a delay here and how I fixed it.


FIRST:
Here's a shot of my first and only hand rotocast part in white. It really isn't bad only that a small amount of leakage occurred on the right side causing one of the arm recesses to be 1-2 mm deeper than the left side. It's not too noticeable but it wouldn't sit well with me to send parts like that out.



So I had to re-think the body...

I had to ditch the solid top and rotocast idea. I started by removing the top plate and gutting all the foam. As you can see, the wall on the left is full of undercuts so I had to add plastic and make the inner walls smooth and mold ready.

GUTTED:


NEW INNER WALLS:



Another area that set me back was the bottom. As you can see in the first pic which was taken earlier in the build, the undercuts....more noticeably is the one on the left side. So, I built new 90 degree walls, again, to make it more mold friendly.








And, another primer shot after re-puttying all the seams.



Oh, and the eye socket will be a separate part now.

Joe

[Sharkdog]

Looks like some very smooth work, and I guess the overall end result will end up being a little less heavy as well eh?

[fulcy]

It will probably be about the same weight - rotocasting involves putting resin in a mold, but only enough to coat the inside of the mold with maybe an 1/8" of material, and rotating the mold constantly until the resin cures.  This results in a part that is lightweight because it is hollow, but issues can crop up like Joe experienced.  The new parts may actually be a little heavier than the rotocast part, since Joe had to add material in areas to remove undercuts, and probably added features to 'key' the top and bottom pieces together accurately.

[Hunter Rose]

Looking good Joe! 

[Beork]

wow, shitload of work going into this one.
Hope it'll work out now.

[FichtenFoo]

Looking awesome! Add me to the list if you;ve got one!

[joewhite]

Thanks so much guys! I did coat the crap out of the one rotocast part I made so it is heavier than the original when it was filled with foam. The new pattern should hopefully yield parts only slightly heavier.

Michael, I gotcha on the list bud! Thanks again fellas!

Joe

[joewhite]

The master has been sent to a caster who does some insanely awesome work! Thanks all for your patience.....this project still lives!

Joe

[FichtenFoo]

Thanks so much guys! I did coat the crap out of the one rotocast part I made so it is heavier than the original when it was filled with foam. The new pattern should hopefully yield parts only slightly heavier.

Michael, I gotcha on the list bud! Thanks again fellas!

Joe

Thanks!

[joewhite]

I know it's been a long journey but I just wanted to inform you guys who may still be interested that the caster has begun working on it! More soon, I promise!

Joe

[fulcy]

yes!