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 Making Gel flex moulds:


Moving forwards into my final end of year project I have decided to gel flex moulds of my bike cogs so that I can then create multiple plaster cogs to use. To do this I needed to use illustrator to scan the image and then I sent it off to be laser cut three times. The reason for this is that the original cogs were far too thin to make a mould out of, and they would have broken upon taking them out of the moulds. By laser cutting three versions and gluing them together I am able to create a much deeper mould resulting in a thicker and stronger plaster cast.




I found that Gel flex was relatively easy to use and inly required my cut cut up and prepare the material into small cubes and then melt in the microwave for approximately 6 minuets all together, and once poured was left to cool down and dry for a couple of hours. 


As a precaution, for my first lot of casts I decided to try a harder material called Jesmonite. It's slightly stronger than plaster and so there would be less chance of them breaking. The preparation of this mixture is fairly similar to making plaster and involved weighing the correct amount and mixing a powder and liquid activator together. 

When looking at the cogs once they had been removed I believe that they were an overall success, they were solid and took on the shape and form of the mould very well. Unfortunately one of the smaller cogs had warped the mould and upon trying to remove it, ripped parts of the mould off. One thing that I didn't like about these was the colour of the hardened Jesmonite, they were off white and had a slightly yellow tint. Due to this I believe that there was this plastic fake feeling to them, which I think made them appear dull. 




 

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