Monday, January 4, 2010

Rhino Gas Mask: Cold Cast Horn

I've now cast the rhino horn in cold cast aluminum. Below you can compare the model (on the right) with the finished piece (on the left).


Designing a piece of art such as this requires being able to look at the model—here made of an unsightly conglomeration of resin, acrylic sheet, copper wire, metal eyelets, and brads—and see the finished horn, in all its beauty. (You do think it's beautiful, don't you?) That is the wonder of resin casting, and especially cold cast metal casting.



Cold cast is nothing more than mixing a very finely ground metal powder (in this case aluminum) into resin. Once it has hardened, I sand the surface of the casting to reveal the aluminum beginning with 180 grit, and continue with finer grits all the way up to 0000 steel wool.

The final step is polishing the piece with a Dynabrade rotary buffer, using a foam pad and compounding liquid. That final polishing is the key to getting it to shine.

4 comments:

  1. Most Inventive, I think its really mechanical and organic. Quick Question. Your Pack Rat Mask, will you make another or will there only be one for the Movie after the Fall, Or did you just make a copy of what you already had done before?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paul, part of my arrangement with the producer of After The Fall is that I have the sole rights to reproduce all of the masks I've made for it. So yes, I will be making more of the Packrat mask.

    ReplyDelete