Shuttle take:2

Going back to the thought of sizing I went through what I had on hand to find a way of extending the shuttle. One thing I came across was the plastic tags I had picked up a few weeks ago.After playing with the shapes I settled on this oval one.

 I also found a mostly half full bottle of UV curing resin. I wanted a mold that I could create a test blade in a few hours as opposed to a few days. I went in search of my Oyumaru, and used that along with the UV resin to make another sample blade. Luckily for me, it was over 100 degrees outside, so I had plenty of sunlight to use to cure it.

I threw in some translucent flakes so it wouldn't be so see through and also so I could see how much of that resin I had poured in.

 About two hours later I had this ugly piece. The bottom was pretty solid but the top was still gel like. I think because instead of layering and curing it I just filled the temporary mold up to the rim and let it sit out in the sun. An unexpected benefit was that it was still malleable enough to bend into the curve needed for the shuttle blade.

 Here is the size comparisons to the other two blades I made previously.

After some sanding this beauty came out. It's all sparkly, it reminds me of an opal. The only downside is that I couldn't really make out the patterns on the hearts. It's been camouflaged by the flakes. I doubt it would have shown any better if the resin was kept clear.

The size is coming out better to what I wanted to encase my tatting in.Still not the right size but I'm getting closer.

 I could put some small tatting in the center oval. It is thick enough to add a motif made in size 80 thread. Also, it's not really flat there in the center. It is slightly concave so I could add a motif then add some more resin to dome it off. The underside is of course all smooth and the other side is also except inside the actual heart portions. I wanted to show off the detail so I mix up some regular resin added a small bit of black coloring and using the same Oyumaru mold, cast another blade. It ended up having a smokey cast with small bits still in it. When I checked it, it wasn't done curing. This is a good thing because I needed to bend it enough to shape the other blade. I placed both pieces together making sure the heart tips all touched, then gently pushed on the ends until I had a satisfactory bend to the center. Now the problem was keeping it like that until the resin finished curing. Surprisingly, the Oyumaru mold was the solution. It was just the right thickness to keep the bend I wanted for this piece.

The flash drowns out alot of the other detail so I took one with just the overhead lights on.

I also made a few extra hearts so I could make another mini shuttle in the smokey coloring. After they all finish curing I have to make a center post for this. For now I think I'm going to use industrial glue to put the post in. Later I think I will make a final mold where the post will be in two parts that will slide into one another, like a sleeve. I ordered some shuttles that come apart this way, and when they arrive I'm going to see how they hold up to actual use. It would make sense to have a slide in post to join so I could make the two blades at the same time with the different ends of the post built into the mold. I do believe that I will have to add another layer of stabilizing resin between the hearts and the oval. Since they aren't actually touching I don't want them to break off because of the thin layer of resin between the two motifs.