Harvest Moon Inspired Engagement Ring
Late last year, I was approached by a friend to make an engagement ring for his beloved. I'd always wanted to try my hand at one, so I agreed. When discussing a design, he brought up her love of Harvest Moon and in particular, the blue feather that features heavily in relationships in game. After some back and forth about possible designs, we settled on a feather floating in clear resin. Now, finding a clear resin that would work for this purpose involved some research. I'd seen one in particular that had sparked my interest. However, it contained mercury. That supposedly become inert when fully cured, but even Smoothon themselves couldn't say with certainty that someone wearing it on their skin for long periods of time wouldn't be affected.
Back to the drawing board.
I settled on EpoxAcast 690, my workhorse for clear and gem castings. I'd grown to know it's intricacy and felt like I could get it to preform as I needed.
I modeled the ring master in Fusion 360, cleaned it up in Netfabb, and sliced it in Kisslicer 64, before printing it in ABS on my Polyprinter 229. After a quick acetone vapor bath to help with the smoothing process, I sanded from 400 grit up to 2000 grit, with a final polish of Mother's Aluminium.
I ran a test cast of EpoxAcast with a feather to get a feel for how they would interact, and to see if the epoxy could reach the shine I was hoping for. And it did. So much better than I'd hoped.
The mold for the ring was done in Dragonskin 10, tinted with Slic Pig black. Can't remember why I tinted it that day.
I allowed it 48 hours to cure since I'd never cast this epoxy in such thin sections and it was slightly cold during this period.
After removal and some basic clean up, I went through the 400 to 2000 grit cycle and a bout of polishing to reach the final product.
An unexpected ability of the ring (most likely to how thin it was cast), is it's reaction to body heat. It becomes slightly malleable. We're keeping an eye on it and will either remake or reinforce as necessary.
Back to the drawing board.
I settled on EpoxAcast 690, my workhorse for clear and gem castings. I'd grown to know it's intricacy and felt like I could get it to preform as I needed.
I modeled the ring master in Fusion 360, cleaned it up in Netfabb, and sliced it in Kisslicer 64, before printing it in ABS on my Polyprinter 229. After a quick acetone vapor bath to help with the smoothing process, I sanded from 400 grit up to 2000 grit, with a final polish of Mother's Aluminium.
I ran a test cast of EpoxAcast with a feather to get a feel for how they would interact, and to see if the epoxy could reach the shine I was hoping for. And it did. So much better than I'd hoped.
The mold for the ring was done in Dragonskin 10, tinted with Slic Pig black. Can't remember why I tinted it that day.
I allowed it 48 hours to cure since I'd never cast this epoxy in such thin sections and it was slightly cold during this period.
After removal and some basic clean up, I went through the 400 to 2000 grit cycle and a bout of polishing to reach the final product.
An unexpected ability of the ring (most likely to how thin it was cast), is it's reaction to body heat. It becomes slightly malleable. We're keeping an eye on it and will either remake or reinforce as necessary.
