TECH: Wing a Custom Taillight

[SMChewy]

well it is -35 celcius here and it was beside a window that might have something to do with it, I wonder if I hit it with a heat gun if that will help at all. I actually haven't touched them in a few days now, maybe theyre cured.
Thanks amigo, the mold I made, its just some mexican thing I found at a small shop and built it up like the hummingbird

Majority of resins are heat catalyst for hardening. That is probably it. If you have a oven you can set really low at like 125-150 you could probably bake it a little to finish the catalyzation. Just watch it so you don't melt it.

[Guest]

Majority of resins are heat catalyst for hardening. That is probably it. If you have a oven you can set really low at like 125-150 you could probably bake it a little to finish the catalyzation. Just watch it so you don't melt it.

It seems like they are all hardened, but because I fucked with them when they were sticky theres dust embedded. I gotta order more resin then I'll try recasting and slow baking, thanks for the input

[ibuiltmine]

well it is -35 celcius here and it was beside a window that might have something to do with it, I wonder if I hit it with a heat gun if that will help at all. I actually haven't touched them in a few days now, maybe theyre cured.
Thanks amigo, the mold I made, its just some mexican thing I found at a small shop and built it up like the hummingbird

before the heat gun, Id just take them to room temperature.

[SMChewy]

It seems like they are all hardened, but because I fucked with them when they were sticky theres dust embedded. I gotta order more resin then I'll try recasting and slow baking, thanks for the input

Shouldn't need to bake em if your just doing it over. The colder it is where you are doing it the more catalyst or hardener you should use when you mix the resin. Then let it set in a warm DRY area. If it were me and I was doing it in my cold ass garage, I would put more hardener in it, and set it in front of a space heater to set-up inside the mold, then once it doesn't stink so bad, move it inside your house to finish. Good luck. Cool mold you found. you just gonna drill out the bottom and stuff the light inside from the bottom? Or are you going to make a back for it?

[Guest]

Shouldn't need to bake em if your just doing it over. The colder it is where you are doing it the more catalyst or hardener you should use when you mix the resin. Then let it set in a warm DRY area. If it were me and I was doing it in my cold ass garage, I would put more hardener in it, and set it in front of a space heater to set-up inside the mold, then once it doesn't stink so bad, move it inside your house to finish. Good luck. Cool mold you found. you just gonna drill out the bottom and stuff the light inside from the bottom? Or are you going to make a back for it?

Ill try that, my shop is in my basement and its really hot down there, I did these in the kitchen cause its cleaner aha but next time Ill put them down there and let them sit longer. Yeah I like the mold a lot, it had a cross coming off the middle finger before but I wasnt into it
On the ones that I have made already I caved out some of the back and used the internals of a light I already had but I didn't like it so that's another thing I have to figure out. I was thinking of kind of doing what the shield with wings guy did, just a plate behind it, instead of trying to make a housing that goes around all the fingers.

[originalrumrunner]

Ill try that, my shop is in my basement and its really hot down there, I did these in the kitchen cause its cleaner aha but next time Ill put them down there and let them sit longer. Yeah I like the mold a lot, it had a cross coming off the middle finger before but I wasnt into it
On the ones that I have made already I caved out some of the back and used the internals of a light I already had but I didn't like it so that's another thing I have to figure out. I was thinking of kind of doing what the shield with wings guy did, just a plate behind it, instead of trying to make a housing that goes around all the fingers.

Yeah, I've had a few stay sticky like that when I was eyeballing the mix and wasn't careful. Two things you can do to sometimes rescue them:

1. Stick in the oven for a little while (30 minutes) at 270 degrees F or so, keeping an eye on it. Sometimes this will harden up the exterior, but if the mix is way off, this won't help it much.

2. Mix up a new (small) batch of resin and brush over the original. If you mix it correct, this will harden on the sticky outside and give you a nice surface. On top of that (HA!) you can also fill in bubbles, holes, and imperfections with this. You do have to be careful of brush strokes though, it hardens pretty quick.

The light looks great by the way, original for sure!

[originalrumrunner]

Also, keep in mind on all of these, that if the surface isn't super-shiny like you wanted, you can always coat the outside with clear nail polish or that "wet-cement" stuff that you can get at real hardware stores. Both work really nice to gloss everything up and again hide any imperfections.

[Guest]

Also, keep in mind on all of these, that if the surface isn't super-shiny like you wanted, you can always coat the outside with clear nail polish or that "wet-cement" stuff that you can get at real hardware stores. Both work really nice to gloss everything up and again hide any imperfections.

as I was reading your first response I remembered earlier you said something about nail polish on the finished product to fll bubbles and crap, Im gonna try that out right now, they seem to not be sticky anymore. Next time I will definitely measure, I used the old finger on the outside of the bottle measurement trick aha
Thanks amigo!

[Wayland137]

That is awesome! I love this - will be heading to the craft store tonight!

[standrew]

Here is what I started the other night.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MY8JzFSdv6s/TTt2wTzCxdI/AAAAAAAAAKY/b8vrOkcSMOg/s1600/IMG_20110122_183012.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MY8JzFSdv6s/TTt2ywlLS9I/AAAAAAAAAKc/Sg2DdruZNw0/s1600/IMG_20110122_183027.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MY8JzFSdv6s/TTt21hGGFPI/AAAAAAAAAKg/Dw-oEiOZaH4/s1600/IMG_20110122_183034.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MY8JzFSdv6s/TTt25YrgtSI/AAAAAAAAAKk/uJNg2IZNcCo/s1600/IMG_20110122_183049.jpg

[kacivic]

Sweet.

I've been looking forward to trying this, figured i'd start out easy. Built the first mold from the base of a bottle of Lone Star beer. Planning to embed LEDs in the resin and see how that works out.

[badmojo]

This thread is the best,ive got a vacuum press at work along with plenty of high density foam,just gotta wait till the boss isnt around so i can fuck around on a sweet taillight!!

[mmi794939]

Su-weet!

[RmFaster]

I'm still impressed by how well Originalrumrunner's humming bird turned out.

You definitely have side job if you ever need one.

Great work and write up.

[EODrew]

LED vs Resin survival

I've been looking forward to trying this, figured i'd start out easy. Built the first mold from the base of a bottle of Lone Star beer. Planning to embed LEDs in the resin and see how that works out.

If anyone has embedded LEDs IN their project and run it for a few hours tell us how that turned out! I'm not where I can experiment right now and am living vicariously. Thanks for sharing the experience and insight.