Final Plaster project

For the final project i my goal was to make a plaque of the eagle, globe and anchor which is the symbol of the Marine Corps, the material being plaster. First i had to make the shapes of the base and the symbol, both of which came out pretty well.


Next i had to vacuum form the 2 pieces in order to create the molds i would need to shape the plaster. The molds actually formed pretty well, considering the fact that i used 20 mil styrene, which stretched to the point where it was very thin in some areas.

After pouring the plaster and letting it sit, the base actually came out pretty well, sturdy and with no bubbles of any kind. The symbol was a different story. My first 3 attempts were all failures, breaking before or right after they came out of the mold. My fourth mold came out the best, however, once i started carving in details it began to break in different areas, along where the plaster was thinner. I was left with a disaster, the final was broken in at least 4 or 5 different places. What i concluded from this mess was that if you want to mold plaster, do NOT make less than at least 1" thick, otherwise its probability of crumbling or breaking apart is greatly increased. To conclude, i wasn't really happy with how the final came out, but it would have looked pretty good if it hadnt broken all over. I probably won't be working again with plaster any time in the near future.

Yellowfoam flashlight

I thought it would be cool to make a flashlight modeled after a rifle scope, so i cut out a 9x2x2 block of yellowfoam and formed the shape out on the lathe. Once the lathing was done i sanded it until it was as smooth as i could get it, covered it in spot putty, sanded, more putty, sanded it again, and finally painted it matte black. The two knobs on the top and the side i painted separately, gloss black, and one of those would act as the on/off button. Then i placed the lense in.

I also made a stand/charger(?) for the flashlight that i thought helped make it look more like a scope. This was relatively easy to make, i used the bandsaw to get the shape, sanded down the edges, primed it, and painted it gloss black.

Overall I am happy with the way the flashlight came out.

Final Project Chavant

So I did my experiments and decided that each hardness of chavant is best for there own uses and has a lot to do with the scale you are working in. Skin-so-soft is good if you aren't going to paint the chavant after. You can paint directly on chavant without primer, but primer will help smooth out flaws in the surface. Automotive paint gives a great finish on chavant (expected). Water can be used to smooth chavant and you can paint it after using water. Smoothing the surface of chavant does take time and a good amount of effort. I decided to make a video game controller for my final. The first photo is my experiments and the second my final.

Yellow Foam Flashlight

The yellow foam flashlight was shaped on the lath first. Then i smoothed the surface with spackle. I put a lot of time into the finish and decided to keep the color to black (gloss and flat). The design included a ring of LED's in the wider area and a regular flashlight bulb in the very front. In reality i would have liked the flashlight to be totally controlled by twisting the front, so i did not include a button.

Blue Foam Project

For the blue (we used pink, same thing) foam project me and Kev decided to make headphones. The only real problem run into was making such delicate parts out of this material. When it came time to spackle these parts were very fragile which created problems when sanding. In the end i feel like the headphones could have been better and smoother, but given the material they came out pretty decent.

Final CAT

Here are some process photos and final photos of my backhoe loader. Working with cardboard was pretty simple. The hardest part was creating small parts. I also made most of the model moving which was difficult with some parts but pretty simple. I also used found rims to give it a little flare and an interesting appearance.