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Making Wax for Carving, Casting, and Machining

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting

Pouring, Hand-Forming, Detail-Carving, or Polishing – Wax Does it All

Sculpting and hand carving are skills that do not come naturally to me. I can visualize, create, and generally comprehend geometric forms, but there are some things that I just cannot see while working on shapes in nature, and this includes human faces and figures.

I do still need to be able to create an acceptable figure or head now and then for automaton or animatronic projects, but unless some skill develops it is destined to be a “rework until good enough” endeavor. I can live with that shortcoming as long as the job can still eventually get done. It does however require the selection and use of sculpting or carving materials that can tolerate a lot of mistakes and rework. The ideal material would be easily hand-moldable yet firm enough to hold shape and detail without fear of damage from the slightest mishandling. It must carve easily, but it should also allow easy addition of material to fill in mistakes.

After trying a few different types of sculpting media (water-based and polymer clays, oil based plasticine, basswood, carvable foam) I decided that carving wax was a material that I could live with.… Read the rest

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Building a Working “Zoltar Speaks” Fortune Teller

Posted on by by Posted in Automata & Kinetic Art, Coin-Op Machines, DIY, Movies, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Vintage

Full-Size Replica of the Fortune Teller in the Film BIG (1988)

Sometime in the late 1970s I became fascinated with researching and collecting antique game machines, candy vending machines, and other amusement devices. My interests were at first focused on those machines that I vaguely remembered from rare visits to a penny arcade as a youth in the ’60s, and even then I was drawn to the artistic design and mechanics of the earlier designs with their art deco lines or ornate castings and wood cabinets. It wasn’t until I started locating information and pictures of these early amusement devices that I became more consciously aware that I had personally encountered many of them at fairs, in drug and dime stores, and in the local movie theater lobby.

Even in the ’60s, the penny arcade that traveled with the amusement show for the annual county fair was loaded with machines that dated back into the early ’30s, and possibly even earlier. By the time I developed the bug to start seeking out and collecting items from this era the market for coin-operated collectibles was hot and getting hotter, due in part to west-coast publications and shows that were fueling speculation and driving prices upward.… Read the rest

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Animated Semaphore Stop Light

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Vintage

Working Semaphore Stop Light – 5 1/2 Feet Tall

This early metal casting project is the unfortunate result of an urgent need to build something out of poured metal without first doing the proper research into what I was making. Over the years I have managed to find a few images of real semaphore lights, and what I imagined they looked like was not really close to what I built. Anyway, it is what it is, and at least I can say that it is unique.

Out of fairness, this was made more than thirty years ago, shortly after I had caught a passing glimpse of a real one in a street scene of Spielberg’s “1941”. At this time there was no web, no Google images, and VCRs and laserdiscs were just starting to become available, so even the ability to replay a movie scene on your own tape or disk was yet to come. Even at antique shows that I frequented, such as the Chicagoland slot machine & antique advertising shows, I never saw any other than the common three-color stop lights in all the years I attended. Semaphore signals had to have been there at some time, but not when I visited.… Read the rest

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Pressure/Vacuum Casting Chamber with Camera

Posted on by by Posted in Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Tools & Machinery

Allows Visual Monitoring of Degassing and Casting Operations

See What's Going On Inside Under Pressure or Vacuum

See What’s Going On Inside Under Pressure or Vacuum

Right or wrong, and subject to controversy, these are the general steps that can help produce bubble-free parts or molds using resin or silicone rubber:

  1. Measure out the two parts of the casting/molding material
  2. Mix any pigments or additives with one part of the resin or rubber, usually recommended by the manufacturer
  3. Optionally degas the components now – before combining – to minimize entrapped air or moisture. Do not over-pump below material’s vapor pressure, or you will create a nearly endless supply of new bubbles..
  4. Prepare to work quickly once the materials are mixed in the next step. The clock will be ticking…
  5. Thoroughly mix the two parts together, stirring and scraping the side walls. Transfer the mix to a new container if desired to minimize unmixed pockets of material.
  6. Fast-cure resins or mold rubbers may not give you time for this step, but degassing the mixture in a vacuum for a short time will help remove air entrapped in the stirring process.
  7. Remove the degassed mixture and carefully pour around part or into mold.
  8. Again, and only if time permits, quickly degas the the resin/mold or the mold-material/pattern to boil off bubbles introduced during the pour
  9. Apply 45 – 60 psi pressure to the casting chamber for the duration of the material’s cure time.
… Read the rest
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Review: SJK-1 Digital Wax Carving Pencil

Posted on by by Posted in Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Tools & Machinery

Inexpensive Dual-Handle Unit With Independent Temperature Controls

This is Just One of Several Types of Inexpensive Wax Carvers Available on eBay

This is Just One of Several Types of Inexpensive Wax Carvers Available on eBay

After experimenting around with a few different sculpting mediums, wax seems to be a material that I might be able to do something with. Subtractive sculpting in wood requires too much vision, training, or talent – none of which I have. Clays allow addition of material to fill in mistakes, but I haven’t had much luck obtaining a finish suitable for producing a final mold from which I can cast multiple pieces.

But wax is different. Some of the harder varieties of sculpting wax can be carved and polished to a very high finish and are durable enough to easily make it through the process of mold-making. The ability to build up or repair wax fairly quickly makes it attractive for experienced sculptors as well as those of us that have to repeatedly add or subtract material until whatever we are making looks right.

It took about five minutes of using an alcohol lamp to heat tools and melt wax to realize that an electric wax pencil would be a necessity. And since I didn’t know much about what I needed or whether I would stick with carving, I looked for something that didn’t cost several hundred dollars.… Read the rest

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