Category Archives: resin casting

Get Nostalgic with these GameCube Themed Joy-Cons

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There are a lot of good reasons to think fondly of the Nintendo GameCube. Metroid Prime and Rogue Leader knocked it out of the park. The Game Boy Player was cool. There’s even something to be said for having a convenient carrying handle on a system designed for couch multiplayer. But if you ask anyone who played Nintendo’s sixth generation console what part they missed the least, it would probably be the controller. With all the visual flair of a Little Tikes playset and ergonomics designed for an octopus, it’s a controller that works well for first-party Nintendo titles …read more

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Rachel Wong Keynote: Growing Eyeballs in the Lab and Building Wearables that Enhance Experience

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The keynote speaker at the Hackaday Belgrade conference was Rachel “Konichiwakitty” Wong presenting Jack of All Trades, Master of One. Her story is one that will be very familiar to anyone in the Hackaday community. A high achiever in her field of study, Rachel has learned the joy of limiting how much energy she allows herself to expend on work, rounding out her life with recreation in other fascinating areas.

There are two things Rachel is really passionate about in life. In her professional life she is working on her PhD as a stem cell researcher studying blindness and …read more

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Snail is Actually Cleverly Strange Geocaching Waypoint

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Basic geocaching consists of following GPS coordinates to a location, then finding a container which is concealed somewhere nearby. Like any activity, people tend to add their own twists to keep things interesting. [Jangeox] recently posted a video of the OLED Snail 2.0 to show off his most recent work. (This is a refinement of an earlier version, which he describes in a blog post.)

[Jangeox] spices up geocaching by creating electronic waypoints, and the OLED Snail is one of these. Instead of GPS coordinates sending someone directly to a goal, a person instead finds a waypoint that reveals another …read more

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Go From Resin Caster to Resin Master

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When it comes to resin casting, time is of the essence. It helps to gather everything you’ll need and have it within reach before starting. But if you don’t know what you don’t know, it can be difficult to anticipate needs. Luckily, [Botzen Design] has a few tricks up his sleeve that will save time, materials, and sanity for novices and old hands alike.

It may seem somewhat obvious to mix up resin in a disposable or reusable plastic cup. But not all cups are created equal. Polypropylene cups won’t outgas into your resin, but polystyrene will. If you use …read more

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Arduino and Pi Breathe New Life into Jukebox

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What do you do when someone gives you a Wurlitzer 3100 jukebox from 1969, but keeps all the records? If you are like [Tijuana Rick], you grab an Arduino and a Rasberry Pi and turn it into a really awesome digital music player.

We’ll grant you, making a music player out of a Raspberry Pi isn’t all that cutting edge, but restoration and integration work is really impressive. The machine had many broken switches that had been hastily repaired, so [Rick] had to learn to create silicone molds and cast resin to create replacements. You can see and hear the …read more

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Welcome… To Resin Cast Park

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From animatronic dinosaurs to [Jeff Goldblum]’s prosthetic chest hair, Jurassic Park is known for its practical effects and props. While it’s not as fancy as a breathing triceratops, YouTube’s god of resin casting has recreated one of the more endearing props from this movie. [Peter Brown] and [Pocket83] made a replica of the amber-topped cane carried by John Hammond, and it took him two years to do it.

The ‘mosquito in amber’ walking cane prop from Jurassic Park is just what you think it is – a large mosquito-looking bug trapped in 100 million year old amber. Of course, finding …read more

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Using a Jewelry Kit to Resin-Encase Electronics

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Some of us have looked at clear resin jewelry casting kits online and started to get ideas. Hackaday’s own [Nava Whiteford] decided to take the plunge and share the results. After purchasing a reasonably economical clear resin jewelry casting kit from eBay, a simple trial run consisted of embedding a solar lantern into some of the clear resin to see how it turned out. The results were crude, but promising. A short video overview is embedded below.

The big hangup was lack of a proper mold. [Nava]’s attempt to use a plastic bag and a cup as an expedient stand-in …read more

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Parent To The Power Wheels Rescue

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If the [realjohnnybravo] is the one from the show, it appears he finally managed to get a girlfriend, marry her, and produce at least one son. As the old schoolyard rhyme goes, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes filling the whole *!$&# backyard with brightly colored plastic garbage. One of these items, a Power Wheels quad bike,  suffered a blow from planned obsolescence leaving behind a traumatized child. [realjohnnybravo] decided to fix it.

He made frequent mention of how one could go to a store and purchase replacement gears for the toy. Perhaps it’s a German thing. Regardless, …read more

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Learn Resin Casting Techniques: Cold Casting

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Sometimes we need the look, feel, and weight of a metal part in a project, but not the metal itself. Maybe you’re going for that retro look. Maybe you’re restoring an old radio and you have one brass piece but not another. It’s possible to get a very metal like part without all of the expense and heat required in casting or the long hours in the metal fabrication shop.

Before investing in the materials for cold casting, it’s best to have practical expectations. A cold cast part will not take a high polish very well, but for brushed and …read more

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