Awalon
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Superb september solutions!
🕑 Added 2021-09-26 12:19:23 +0000 UTCGreetings, fellow suit afficionados! Laaaate monthly post, but the delay was worth it. Good news and answers aplenty!
As you know, I've been fighting with the production system since the start of the year. I'll be honest, it's completely eaten my life and all of my energy. Lots of other subprojects, but I haven't had the peace of mind to work on them with the core system issues haunting me. Burning €3k+ on the full-suit casting chamber without a fully working process was quite daunting too.
Well, fighting has ceased, for I have had a sequence of heureka-moments! I got the pure coagulant sorted and the drip-slice issues disappeared. Had trouble getting proper surface coverage though, which resulted in thin spots/complete showstopping defects. Also started getting strange bumps all over the casts. Spent way too much time battling these issues, and in the end...
- The bumps (-98) turned out to be a case of 'swapped supplier for paper cloth and didn't think too much of it'. When wiping down the mold pre-cast, the paper towels left tiiiiny pieces behind. Barely visible to the naked eye, but they'd stick and soak up enough coagulant to produce a noticeable bump. Easy fix, no more paper towels.
- The coagulant coverage issue (-97) was due to my previous batch having a tiny bit of soap mixed into it. Helps with the surface tension. Had completely forgotten, and it took several weeks of experimentation for me to remember it. A few experiments later and voila - perfect coverage dips. Also a major hindsight-facepalm over how goddamn expensive those missing drops of soap were.
- The drip-slicing/drizzle (-96 and -95) reappeared once I mixed in the soap. Boo. But now we know what's causing it! And since we know that, we can solve it. Experimented a bit - turns out that there's a golden zone in the mix ratio of "enough to help coverage"+"won't slice". Victory!
What all this boils down to is that I can finally say I have the system under control and the casting machine is done after almost a full year of work. We're good to go for scaling this up to full-suit level! Plus, all the other subprojects that have been on the backburner while the casting stole the show.
This entire sequence of heurekas happened in the last few days, so I haven't quite had the time to collect my thoughts on what to grab a hold of next. I'm still in major-relief-mode over finally having the issues solved. There's plenty to pick from, though. Glue-free, painted stuff/new models to the store to help with funding, planning+building of casting chamber, actual dressups and media, etcetc. Stay tuned for october :)
PS: I can't repeat this enough, jfc it's a weight off the shoulders to finally have this milestone done after almost a year of work. Joie de vivre is back!
PPS: yeah I know the microbubble ticket is still there, but it's harmless enough for me to be ok with it existing for now
Comments
Iris Deveraux
Your genius is showing ;)
Avalon I
what won't we do for our dreams :)
Jon Phillips
Excellent work! And amazing persistence
