Creating the Galaxy Cluster Ring from Opal, Resin and Tungsten

Hi everyone, in this week's video we're going to make a

ring

with a

tungsten

core, we're going to take some of these big chunks of white

opal

and we're going to attach them there with a little bit of CA glue, just a little bit. a little bit and then we'll dye some of this alumalite with this carbon pigment and make a nice casting, so I put the

tungsten

core on a mandrel to make it easier to hold and I'll just do a little blob of CA glue. on my table and what I'm going to do is take a small piece of

opal

and dip it in CA a little bit and then let it stick to the band and then we'll keep repeating this process and kind of random order until we've covered the entire core and that way we can get a nice even distribution of our white opals in there.

It's a little hectic deciding where to place them on the band but I think it looks good so now that we have everything covered we can go ahead and get to work on our casting this is probably the most important step of the rope. I have to make an inside and outside mold with cardstock and I have to completely seal the bottom. so that when I fill it with

resin

it doesn't come out forced because we're going to put it in a pressure cooker so there are no air bubbles, but I'm going to go ahead and show this whole process of how.

I make this mold because it can be a little tricky now that we've finished casting, we're going to mix our

resin

in a one to one ratio and this is a small amount that I'm using so I use something with a vial. So measu

ring

it to get a good mix is ​​very important because if you don't have a one to one ratio between the hardener and the resin, it will come out very cloudy or it won't cure at all. way and then you would have wasted a ton of time, so I use this little vial and I only use about one and a half in each and once we have it in the cup, we'll just add our black pigment and mix it together. and Illumina also lights up really well because it has a really long working time and it's very thin so it mixes quickly and it's very forgiving so we're going to go ahead and do that and then place our resin on the molding now that the resident is fully mixed so we can just start pouring, we'll start on one side and fill slowly and let it open completely around the mold and that way we won't spill out and end up with air bubbles trapped in there, this is the The best way to get a nice uniform molding here, so now we're going to take our mold and we're going to put it in the pressure vessel and what this does is it puts the mold under air pressure so that the little bubbles inside the viscous resin shrink. and you can't even see them if you have a pressure paw.

This is the easiest way to get a really clear cast without big bubbles that will be like a real eyesore on the ring and you're putting this thing under a lot of pressure. So when you're tightening these clamps, you really can't tighten them enough. I have noticed that if I don't like it, turn them all the way until they stop spinning at about 40psi you will start to hear the top of the pot hiss so you really want to tighten as much as you can so I have the air compressor hooked up to the pot and we're slowly filling it with compressed air and you really don't want to do this. too quickly because you could blow up the mold and knock it over by forcing air into the pot too quickly, so we'll take our time and fill it up to about 45 psi.

You want to leave it there until it dries and then it usually takes an hour or two, but then you can take it out and see that it has completely hardened. The last step to cure is to put it in an oven at 150 for about an hour and then once we're done with that. We can take it to the belt sander and really grind away all the excess paper and shape the mold. It took us about 15 minutes and a whole band, but now it's all the way down to the tungsten, this makes it really easy to get that core out. from there because we can't put it on a ring mandrel if it has all that resin in it so we'll just send it in and eventually we'll be able to get that whole piece out now that it's on a Ring Mandrel that we can put on the lathe and turn it all the way down until we find the opal near the core.

This will take a little time, so we'll just use a tungsten rougher and work down and once. we get close, we'll just switch to sandpaper, we'll go through a couple different grits before cleaning the coat, our last step will be to apply the clear coat on the UV loom, it's super easy and convenient to use and has the same hardness as all alumalite molds. What you have to do is use a brush and you will put a thick coat on it because it is a very viscous resin and then you will give it a UV bath for about five minutes and it will cure and you can apply several coats.

I usually like to scuff it up with a little steel wool between each one to get a good mechanical grip, but after a few coats it creates a really nice glass finish on this ring. I really like the way the ring turned out and I liked being able to use the pressure cooker and UV baths, those are good equipment for me. I'm going to be critical and say I'll probably use smaller opals next time because I wanted them to be lurking like in the black and the larger ones. They are really in your face, you can see there are some smaller ones under there and that's what I was looking for but I can't really complain more than that, I just want to say thank you for all the support over the last few years. weeks, I'm getting way more views than I ever thought I would.

If you liked this, subscribe if you didn't, thanks for watching anyway and I'll have another one next week.