Very first cast... with plaster

Hi all!

This is my very first casting experiment, and i went with... plaster. I wanted to try that for a while so i finally built a one blank mold and casted a plain plaster blank:







I was afraid it would break apart any time but it went rather well at all steps. Plaster is rather smooth and easy to 'grind'. I started turning with my regular tools which went well, but switched to coarse grain sanding at some point and finished it that way to save the tools. It was probably a good idea since there were sand particles here and there which did wreck the sanding paper.

No finish to speak of. Sanded (grinded) with 40 grit, did a couple pass along the axes and that's it. Call it construction rough. The center band is 5mm (about 3/16") plywood of course... :biggrin:

This pen is not close to be usable though. Plaster is very brittle and it would not survive a trip in a bag and even less a fall from a desktop. I would not recommend anybody to carry it in it's breath pocket... unless they are wearing work cloth, but then it would better be in concrete! - which i'm thinking of trying too.

Anyway, it did work out and i'll certainly cast more plaster blanks, including some sort of pigments this time.

I dont even know what to say.

He He... thats pretty neat ...

haha soooo wierd, but soooo interesting
i would be worried about the durability

What a shame that you did that in March instead of February! That is so novel that it deserves to win some kind of prize. I love it. Whoda thunk it? Now this is one of the great things I love about this site. Imagination unlimited at work!
Charles

patmurris said:

Hi all!

This is my very first casting experiment, and i went with... plaster. I wanted to try that for a while so i finally built a one blank mold and casted a plain plaster blank:

I was afraid it would break apart any time but it went rather well at all steps. Plaster is rather smooth and easy to 'grind'. I started turning with my regular tools which went well, but switched to coarse grain sanding at some point and finished it that way to save the tools. It was probably a good idea since there were sand particles here and there which did wreck the sanding paper.

No finish to speak of. Sanded (grinded) with 40 grit, did a couple pass along the axes and that's it. Call it construction rough. The center band is 5mm (about 3/16") plywood of course... :biggrin:

This pen is not close to be usable though. Plaster is very brittle and it would not survive a trip in a bag and even less a fall from a desktop. I would not recommend anybody to carry it in it's breath pocket... unless they are wearing work cloth, but then it would better be in concrete! - which i'm thinking of trying too.

Anyway, it did work out and i'll certainly cast more plaster blanks, including some sort of pigments this time.

Click to expand...

Well, not exactly...!

You soak it with thin CA properly, and you can finish it as any other pen. The durability of the material and the finished wouldn't be that much different that many other materials used to make pens with and used every day...!

You try, and let us know the results, you may surprise yourself...!

Cheers
George

Its pretty cool. I was thinkin same thing about soaking and finishing with ca. I made pen with tiles and grout and ca finish worked out no problem

VERY Creative! I would think that, as suggested, either stabilizing it (as it is porous) or soaking it in CA glue would make it very usable. Great job and thanks for showing! Regards, Doc