Another boring post about my casting experiments I'm afraid ;)

A few posts ago Wayne asked about casting metal. I found a source of ground metal dust (it is used in colouring glazes for potting). I have bought copper, brass and aluminium to play around with. I can also get iron & bronze. This stuff is expensive (£5-£20 per 500g depending on the metal), but I like the results!





This is a 2x2x4 extension cubie, cast from a clear polyester with 2:1 by weight copper dust added. I would add 3:1 next time (this does mean using a lot of this expensive stuff per puzzle). I had to use polyester because I don't have clear polyurethane, I will be getting some!

The piece feels cold like metal, and is heavy. It is also very hard, I don't have a durometer but it is much harder than even a 90 shore epoxy. It polishes up like copper also.

Clearly I wouldn't make a 2x2x4 from these metallised resins, that's just a mould I had handy for the experiment. I am making moulds for a rhombicuboctahedron, this would look very nice with copper, aluminium and brass layers!

Wayne, I really think you could cast an injection moulding tool with an aluminium metallised epoxy resin! I am very sure it would work with a low pressure hand pumped system!!

Max.

Very nice work.

Yes, this is the path I'm going down. I have the plans for the injection machine. It is possible and the cost is a bit but worth it. Maybe around the $300US mark. It won't speed up production that much but accuracy will be the key and failure rate will be low.

Aluminuium filled epoxy resins will make perfect molds.

And you can use very cheap plastic instead of expensive resins!

Max

Exactly. I can then make the puzzles using recycled plastic.