A question of sculpting medium
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:47 pm
I thought I'd ask here if any of our resident customizers worked with acrylic, the sort that is used for artificial nails? My girlfriend is a nail tech, and as you might imagine, I'm a bit more familiar with the nail scene than most military collector, so you'd think that if anyone was going to be using nail products, it would be me. However... most of my skills in the customization arena are focused in the art of carefully adding, arranging, rearranging, and (yes) even removing stowage from the vehicles. I can also apply decals, but not well. Mind you, in no way does this mean that I"m not constantly thinking of great ideas, I just lack the artistic skills to pull them off.
The acrylic that she uses comes in two parts, a powder and a liquid. The two are mixed just prior to application, molded, shaped, or sculpted into the desired shape(s), and then cure into a hard finish. I know she can provide far more info as to how that part works, but I think you can get the overall idea. The finished product is hard, fairly strong, can be filed to different shapes and finishes. It adheres very well to plastics. It can be painted, or, in manners she could better explain, paint can be mixed with the liquid component prior to use to make the whole thing a different color. I know that different things can be mixed into the powder also, primarily glitter for her uses, but others could be used.
About the biggest downside I can think of is its lack of flexiblity, but I don't think that would be too big of a deal, as most of our models shouldn't be flexing much. Recently she's been using it to craft 3-D items for other than nail use, and they've been holding up quite well. She's used acrylic to add flowers to things like sunglasses and rings. She did some sunglasses a couple of years ago to try the idea out, and they've survived day-to-day use since. She's recently started to offer items on her Etsy, where you can kinda see examples of how the acrylic 3-D works.
It seems like it could really be used to great advantage by some of our skilled customizers, and I can certainly see how it would get overlooked as a medium by those not familiar with it. If anyone would like to try it, I could probably arrange for some samples of the product (not sure about shipping the liquid). And I might be able to get her to answer questions if anyone has them.
Let me know what you think.
MV
The acrylic that she uses comes in two parts, a powder and a liquid. The two are mixed just prior to application, molded, shaped, or sculpted into the desired shape(s), and then cure into a hard finish. I know she can provide far more info as to how that part works, but I think you can get the overall idea. The finished product is hard, fairly strong, can be filed to different shapes and finishes. It adheres very well to plastics. It can be painted, or, in manners she could better explain, paint can be mixed with the liquid component prior to use to make the whole thing a different color. I know that different things can be mixed into the powder also, primarily glitter for her uses, but others could be used.
About the biggest downside I can think of is its lack of flexiblity, but I don't think that would be too big of a deal, as most of our models shouldn't be flexing much. Recently she's been using it to craft 3-D items for other than nail use, and they've been holding up quite well. She's used acrylic to add flowers to things like sunglasses and rings. She did some sunglasses a couple of years ago to try the idea out, and they've survived day-to-day use since. She's recently started to offer items on her Etsy, where you can kinda see examples of how the acrylic 3-D works.
It seems like it could really be used to great advantage by some of our skilled customizers, and I can certainly see how it would get overlooked as a medium by those not familiar with it. If anyone would like to try it, I could probably arrange for some samples of the product (not sure about shipping the liquid). And I might be able to get her to answer questions if anyone has them.
Let me know what you think.
MV
