Experimenting with Resin BLADES

After spending time watching YouTube videos with Resin Artists, sharing what they are making, I came across RESIN BLADES. I'm a big fan of "Forged in Fire" and was binge watching the other night when I couldn't sleep and it got me thinking... I'd love to try my hand at Forging with Fire but that's a big involvement and I just don't have the strength to hammer and shape large pieces of metal, so the next best thing is creating blades and handles with Resin. I already have the material, the experience working with Resin and I do love to think outside the box. I'm excited to experiment with this!! So here goes. I began with drawing my designs and then cutting them out of thin recycled plastic from my grocery store purchases. I taped it up as I saw online and then balanced them in a container I cut in half and filled with rice. See pictures. The straight blade worked absolutely perfectly. I ran into trouble with the Curved Blade. I should have used hot glue to connect the seems because the tape left small openings that gave room for the resin to leak out of. Disaster...but I kept with it until it began curing enough to allow me to put a little more resin, and a little more, and a little more until the holes eventually plugged.

Pictured Below: Drawing of Blades with Hand Made Plastic Molds Taped, Straight Blade Mold balancing on the Container with Rice, Claw Blade Mold with Resin Leaks inside the Rice Container that held it in place and the cured Resin pieces. I unfolded the Straight Blade easily but the Claw Blade needed a lot of TLC to remove the excess that leaked out. I chipped at it, tossed it on the cement to loosen the excess (bad idea as it cracked the Claw Blade) and sanded it down to the mold. I was able to pry the rest off the mold once most of it was off. Then the mold came away from the Resin Claw Blade easily enough. Lots of lessons learned!! Not too bad for my first try :) - I'll let it cure for a week before taking it to the sanding bench and shape these pieces, then attach handles. Keep checking back to see the finished results!