Craft Bunker

Festival Decor

2015-08-16T02:47:00.000+01:00

Festival Decor

It's Festival Season here in the UK at present, so I thought it timely to post some photos of fabulous festival decor on a flower theme and create a tongue twister in the process!

These were all made or designed by me and featured at Shambala, Glade, Glastonbury or Sunrise Festival.

This Lotus Flower was eventually stolen at a gig - if anyone happens to find it one day please let me know!

The white interior and orange stamen of this flower above glow in blacklight (UV). In fact the white fabric of all of these flowers is holographic lycra - it looks amazing both in sunlight and in UV.

This is a smaller version of the one above, I made loads of these. Due to the wired petals they were pretty robust to transport - they just bent back into shape when I needed them.

Below are some flowers made from recycled lithography plates - which is very thin metal sheet. The shapes were cut out flat, they were taped and riveted together and then painted with gloss paint. This was for the Kreole Festival 2005, so it's nearly 10 years ago now, how time flies!

Make Fake Flesh - great for Halloween!

2011-10-06T13:21:00.002+01:00

Fake Severed Flesh with Tattoos!

Hello one and all, and welcome to another blog post by Zoe.

Want some gory flesh to accessorise that house party or outfit this Halloween? then you're in the right place!

I will be showing you how to make a nasty piece of tattooed flesh out of transparent silicon, yay!

To start you will need to get some medium chavant. (This is basically a type of sculpting plasticine) you can get this from Alec Tiranti’s in the UK or any other good specialist art supplier.

Once you have softened your chavant, start to mould it into a jagged flesh shape. You can even use part of your own body to mould it on to pick up the skin texture. This piece was moulded on my wrist!

Once you are happy with your shape and texture, using oil paints, start to mix up a flesh colour. The key thing to remember here at this stage is DO NOT add in any white or black pigments, as this will ruin the transparency of the silicon. That layer will come later.

The best way to mix up a Caucasian flesh colour is red, brown and yellow. Sometimes a small hint of blue or green gives it an added dimension, you just need to play around to get it right! Darker skin just needs a different blend, experiment first to get it right.

To check the colour get some white spirit and add a small amount of your mixed colour into it. This should then give you an idea about what it will look like in the silicon.

Next we get out the silicon! The stuff I have used is also from Alec Tiranti’s, and it’s transparent moulding silicon with a mix ratio of 20 to 1.

It helps to have some disposable gloves, cups and a set of digital scales at this point as well as it gets very messy!

Weigh out the exact amount of silicon you think you need. Use your artistic judgement here depending on the size of the piece you are making.

Once weighed out start to mix in the colour you created earlier, adding only a very small bit at a time and trying to avoid any bubbles in your work. Always remember to mix in your colours first then add your catalyst as the silicon will start reacting as soon as the catalyst has been added giving you less working time!

Once you are happy with your colour, carefully paint a thin layer onto your chavant mold, and then allow to dry. The drying time will vary depending on the amount of catalyst added and the room temperature.

Once it has dried you can then mix up a much smaller batch for the tattoo design. My rough design is in black, blue and yellow, but you can take longer on it and choose what ever colours you like. I also applied mine with a metal sculpting tool, however as I soon learnt, this was not the most accurate thing to use!

Once I had finished my design I then left it to dry.

When that layer had finally dried I then added the ‘flesh’ layer to my piece. To do this I mixed up the rest of the transparent layer colour (the first colour mixed) in with some white. I then added this to my silicon, and covered the whole back of the piece. I then again left it to dry.

After it was dry I added the final ‘gore’ layer. To do this I mixed up some red silicon and added some thixotrope to it. Thixotrope is an additive that really thickens the silicon, creating some nice fleshy lumps. I then painted on the red silicon over parts of the back. I then mixed up some darker red and some browns to create more depth, and proceeded to smear it around the back of the piece.

Once dried I slowly pealed it out of the mold and left it in a suitable place to try and scare my flat mate!

Once you have got the basics of the flesh silicon you can then start to make some more in depth body parts, like this hand and ear, both made up using a similar technique, only this time I used a mould of the original sculpt to create the final piece instead of just painting the silicon directly onto the chavant.

How to Make Jelly-Fish Lanterns

2011-10-01T09:00:00.172+01:00

Large Jelly fish lantern. Photo by Y. Gomez

I’ve written previously about how to make fish lanterns, now it's time to make jelly-fish lanterns!

At the time, the jelly-fish idea was a response to the following:

How to make fishy-themed lanterns with a very simple shape (we had to make a lot very quickly, with the help of children.)
And how to recycle a lot of plastic bags. The football field the show was being performed on had been covered in blue tarpaulins (to make it look like the sea), and they’d all come in plastic bags that looked ripe for re-use.

Although we used split green bamboo, you will be able to follow this design exactly using willow withies which are more readily available for a lot of people. Here’s a few links to suppliers in the UK, but search for buff willow, or willow withies and you’ll find them.

http://www.willowgrowers.co.uk/cat/18/buff-willow

http://www.musgrovewillows.co.uk/sc1517_ct12_willow_buff_willow.htm

http://www.windrushwillow.com/pages/dried_willow.html

Soak the willow for 2-4 hours to help with flexibility.

Splitting bamboo. Photo by Y. Gomez

If you want to use bamboo, it must be relatively freshly cut, and split down its length to give you long thin strips about 1cm (3/4 in) wide. If splitting the bamboo with a machete be careful of your hands and arms – bamboo can be very sharp (and so can the machete!) A huge thank you to all those people who split the bamboo for us (Louis particularly!) – we couldn’t have done it without you!

You will need:

A small amount of chicken wire or small shallow tin can.
Pliers and wire cutters
Small tinfoil pie cases or tinfoil.
Willow withies or split green bamboo.
Thin wire
Masking tape and clear tape (eg sellotape)
Secateurs or something else to cut the withies.
Scissors
Cling film
PVA glue (non-washable) watered down so it can penetrate the tissue paper
An old paint brush to apply the glue.
Wet strength tissue paper, about 2-3 sheets per jellyfish, but it depends on how big the jellyfish is!
Tealight candle or other light source (eg glow stick, LED pushlight, torch.)
An old bit of plastic to cut up for the tentacles.

Candle holder

Candle holder:

Make your candle holder first. (An old (washed) sardine tin works well, but we made ours from chicken wire as it was easier to get hold of.) This bit isn’t recommended for kids as the wire can be sharp.

Make a small cylinder shape from chicken wire and attach the ends together so the shape doesn’t spring apart - Use wire or just bend over parts of the chicken wire. Snip the chicken wire apart, from the bottom of the cylinder upwards about a third, and bend some of these bits inwards to create a bottom and some outwards to create ‘legs’.

Put a tinfoil pie case in the bottom or just create a lining at the bottom with tinfoil – this is to stop any wax from dripping out of the bottom of the lantern. Set to one side and make the frame.

The first ring - this is the base of the body

Making the lantern frame:

Make a ring with withies/bamboo that is going to be the base of the jelly fish lantern body. Ours averaged about 25 - 30cm (12in) in diameter (so use a withy that is roughly a metre long (approx. 40 inches) (Although the one in the first picture is much bigger than that).

Overlap the ends of the withies/bamboo and tape with masking tape to hold.

Add a cross, to fit the candle holder onto later

Add a cross of withies/bamboo on top of the ring and tape in place.

Start making the body shape

Cut 3 or 4 lengths of withy/bamboo that will make the shape of the body. Our lengths were about 60cm (24in) long. Attach one end to the edge of the frame, then curve it to attach the other end to the opposite side of the ring.

Work your way round until all the body bits are attached.

Repeat until you've attached all your body-pieces, keeping them evenly spaced around around the ring.

Fit candle holder

Fix the candle holder to the cross of the base by folding its ‘feet’ under the withies/bamboo. Use extra wire if it looks a bit wobbly. Try not to have any wire poking out anywhere as you will eventually put your candle in from underneath. I must admit, you can wait to do this bit last if you want, you'll see in some of the subsequent photos that we're putting the cling film on and the candle holder is nowhere to be seen. Out of preference I would do it at this stage, but it's not essential.

Fatima putting cling film on a nice big jelly fish! Photo byY. Gomez

That's me, helping with the cling film. Photo byY. Gomez

Covering the frame:

When working with small or inexperienced hands, I find it useful to cover the frame with cling film first, before covering with tissue paper. This just gives a base to attach the tissue paper to, but is not strictly necessary. Adults may want to help with this bit! Make sure there’s no cling film bits dangling inside the lantern that may melt in the candle-flame, pat it all flat on the inside.

Getting the paste on, lots of messy fun!. Photo by Y. Gomez

Then the messy part begins! Tear the tissue paper into pieces small enough for your lantern and set aside. Water down pva glue and use old paint brushes to apply it to the tissue paper.

Stick it onto the lantern overlapping the edges of each piece until the whole lantern is covered.

It’s best to use white tissue paper for a base and add a few colours on top of that, rather than do the whole thing in colour – it helps the light transmission.

Adding the finishing touches. Photo by Y. Gomez

Once all your jelly-fish patterns are applied, leave it to dry.

Now is a good time to cut up the plastic you have to make the tentacles. Cut it in thin strips, but not all the way through. Leave about 25mm (1in) at one edge that will keep the whole thing together so you can attach it to the lantern as one big fringe. Then (obviously) attach it to the base ring of the lantern. Clear tape works well.

Cut vent holes:

If you’re using real candles for your light source, cut out a few small holes above the candle holder, (on top of the jelly-fish’s head) to provide a vent hole for the heat to escape. Scissors or a sharp knife works fine.

Vent holes for the heat to escape.

And finally, add a handle by attaching wire to the top withies/bamboo, and insert a lit candle from underneath, by dropping it into the candle holder. If you struggle getting the candle in, you can cut a little ‘door’ in the side and then just tape it closed with clear tape.

As with all candles, it’s best not to leave them unattended, especially if the lanterns are being carried by children.

Other light sources, like torches or glow sticks can be hung from the frame on the inside.

Some finished jelly fish lanterns.

Lighting the candles backstage before the show. Photo by Y. Gomez

Poster for the Kreol Festival Seychelles, 2005

Lastly a huge thank you to all the people that helped us make and light the 200 lanterns for this opening show of the Kreol Festival, it would not have been so spectacular without you!

How to make a magic wand!

2011-09-27T21:57:00.002+01:00

A very simple and quick project – perfect accessory for any wizard costume. (Did someone mention Harry Potter?)

What you need:

Piece of wood (pine is cheap and easy) approx 40 x 1.5 x 1.2 cm
Stanley knife
Sandpaper
Acrylic paint
Rag

Before we start a little reminder about health & safety – maybe a little boring but very important:

This guide is designed for adults
Always cut away from you and keep both hands behind the blade
It’s advisable to wear goggles

Start by marking out the line of your handle at approximately 12.5cm from the bottom. Gently score a line all the way round – this may take a couple of turns.

Start to shape your wand using small shallow cuts – a bit like peeling a carrot. Hold the handle and gradually taper your wand (cutting away from you at all times).

To shape the wand just above the handle, turn the wand around and hold it just above the handle. Use the thumb of your wand holding hand to guide the knife slowly towards the scored line of your handle.

Once you’ve done this you’ll probably end up with a collection of shavings sticking out. To remove these, lay the wand on the table and gently press the blade along the scored line.

To shape the handle: gently slice off the four edges to soften them slightly and round off the end. Once you’ve got the shape you want, use sandpaper to smooth the two ends.

There are various ways you can finish your wand, but in this example I’ve chose to use acrylic paint. You can use any colours you wish – I’d recommend a mid-tone, dark and highlight colours.

The colours I’ve used are burnt sienna, burnt umber and bronze. Use an old rag to apply your base colour (burnt sienna). Wipe it on evenly, dampen the cloth if necessary. The wood grain should show through nicely.

Next, apply your darker colour (burnt umber) with the cloth. Use this neat and rub it on to emphasise the contours.

Finally, use your highlight colour (bronze) on a very dry cloth. Rub the cloth on your mixing palette or another cloth so there is hardly any paint on it. Very lightly start to work the cloth over the ridges on the wand. Apply until you have build up the finish you like.

And there you have it – your very own wizard wand.

There a lots of variations you could do, here are just a few:

· How about some metallic braid to wind around the handle – spray or brush into it to give that antique/worn effect

· Use spray paint, wood stain or wax instead of acrylics

· A small branch from the garden could make a more curvy/gnarled wand

· Add some rhinestones for a bit of sparkle

· Carve a design into the handle

How to make Fish Lanterns

2011-09-14T18:10:00.003+01:00

How to make Fish Lanterns

Fish lanterns

(Scroll down for materials list and instructions)

In 2005 I was asked to go to the Seychelles to help with the opening ceremony of the Kreol Festival.


Our giant sun hanging from the largest crane on the island.

Between me and another artist, the late Paul Flack, we were asked to produce a giant 30ft sun that rose on a crane to mark the start and finish of the show (see pic), and 200 lanterns that would be held by children dancing in the show.

Lanterns are a fast and fun project, once you have the basic materials, but in a foreign country that can prove a bit of a challenge.

In the UK I’d usually use willow to make this kind of thing, but out in the Seychelles we had to experiment with different materials. It’s a small island nation and there are no big DIY or art shops to get materials.

The laborious process of splitting the bamboo - willow is much easier to use if available!

We ended up harvesting green bamboo from the jungle and one of the locals split it down with a machete for us into useable strips. The bamboo dries out quite quickly in the tropical heat, so we had to cover it and keep it in the shade before working with it.

You will be able to follow this design exactly in willow withies however, which are more available in western countries, I would use buff willow if available (soak for 2-4 hours for maximum flexibility) or green willow (soak for 3-5 days, yes, that is days – fine if you have a pond or an old bath you can dump it in, but otherwise a bit troublesome).

Buff willow is available from here: http://www.willowgrowers.co.uk/cat/18/buff-willow, but there's plenty of other suppliers online.

We worked with some of the kids who were in the show to make the lanterns, so the designs were simplified and the techniques made a bit more friendly for little hands. It was an underwater theme so the first lantern we made was a fish, which I’ll describe here. We also made jellyfish, starfish and a shark. I'll breakdown the jellyfish lanten in a future tutorial as well.

We were able, in the absence of over zealous health and safety officials, to use actual tealight candles in these lanterns. But if you’re faced with such challenges you can always use a torch, or other battery operated lightsource, or glowsticks. Battery operated flickering candles are available but I think they’re expensive and don’t really give out a lot of light.

You will need:

A small amount of chicken wire or small shallow tin can.
Pliers and wire cutters
A small tinfoil pie case or tinfoil.
Willow withies or split green bamboo.
Thin wire
Masking tape
Secateurs or something else to cut the withies.
Scissors
Cling film
PVA glue (non-washable) watered down so it can penetrate the tissue paper
Wet strength tissue paper, about 3-4 sheets per fish, but it depends on how big the fish is!
Tealight candle or other light source (and a lighter!).

Make your candle holder first. ( An old (washed) sardine tin works well, but trying to get 200 at short notice in a foreign country wasn’t very easy so we made ours from chicken wire.) This bit isn’t recommended for kids as the wire can be sharp.

Candle holder for the lantern

Candle holder: make a small cylinder shape from chicken wire and attach the ends together so the shape doesn’t spring apart - Use wire or just bend over parts of the chicken wire.

Snip the chicken wire apart, from the bottom of the cylinder upwards about a third, and bend some of these bits inwards to create a bottom.

Put a tinfoil pie case in the bottom or just create a lining at the bottom with tinfoil – this is to stop any wax from dripping into the bottom of the lantern.

Make a ring which defines the shape of the body.

Making the lantern frame: Make a ring with withies/bamboo that is going to be the fattest part of the fish’s body. Ours were about 20cm in diameter. Overlap the ends of the withies/bamboo and tape with masking tape to hold.

Cut 6 lengths and attach them near the end.

Cut 6 lengths of withy/bamboo that will be the length of the fish including the tail. Remember that the finished shape will be curved so take this into account when cutting the length i.e. make them a bit longer. Ours were about 80-90cm long.

Attach these long lengths together 15-20cm from one end. This end bit will eventually make the tail.

Fit the rig inside the long lengths, towards the tail.

Open the lengths and insert the ring inside. Use masking tape to attach the lengths evenly around the ring. (It works well to have 2 rings to form the body, but as we had 200 to make, we had to lose the other ring for speed.) Position the ring in the back third, as later, we will add the candle holder in the front third.

Join the long lengths together to make a fish shape.

Join all the lengths at the other end with masking tape (and wire for extra strength if needed), as in the picture, and now you have a fish with a body!

Strengthen the tail shape.

Making the tail: The tail helps stability when the lantern is placed on the floor, so a useful part of the design: Fan out the tail withies/bamboo so they radiate evenly. Cut every other one a bit shorter so they should be long, short, long, short etc. Use 3 short withies/pieces of bamboo to join up the longer ones, catching the short ones at the base of the curves. Refer to the picture if unsure as this is a bit hard to describe. Use masking tape to secure.

Attach the candle-holder with wire.

Attaching the candle holder: Let your fish sit on the floor and turn it round to see where the ‘top’ is. Ideally it should sit on the floor without rolling around, but the withies/bamboo orientated so that there are 2 struts over the top-most part (rather than 1). Just keep turning it until you find this place.

You ideally need 2 struts over the top to wire the candle holder to – see photo. If you have the candle burning directly under a strut there is a danger it might start to char and burn, so best avoided if you can. Wire your holder into the frame, like the photo.

Cover the whole lantern in cling film - not totally necessary but makes it easier to attach the tissue paper.

Covering the frame: When working with small or inexperienced hands, I find it useful to cover the frame with cling film first, before covering with tissue paper. This just gives a base to attach the tissue paper to, but is not strictly necessary. Adults may want to help with this bit, or avoid it all together!

Then the messy part begins! Tear the wet strength tissue paper into pieces small enough for your lantern and set aside. Water down pva glue and use old paint brushes to apply it to the tissue paper.

Apply glue to the tissue paper then glue onto the lantern.

Stick it onto the lantern overlapping the edges of each piece until the whole lantern is covered. You might have to balance the fish on the end of its tail so you can apply tissue all the way round.

You only really need one layer if using cling film underneath, but if avoiding cling film, put 2-3 layers on for strength. I'm sorry I don't have better pics of this bit, but it's quite messy and hard to get the camera out!

Our workshoppers added some fun colours to finish the fish off, but they look very effective just plain. They will need to be left a few hours to dry.

The last thing to do is to cut out a whole above the candle holder, for access, and to provide a vent hole for the heat to escape. Scissors or a sharp knife works fine. Once lit, you can hold the fish by the tail, but we found the best handle is to attach a long piece of wire from the nose to the tail and carry it with that.

As with all candles, it’s best not to leave them unattended, especially if the lanterns are being carried by children.

Poster for the 20th Kreol Festival 2005

I was a little nervous with how the Kreol Festival show was going to turn out, as it was a large amount of lanterns that we hadn’t fully rehearsed, carried by children wearing very flammable costumes. It was also being broadcast live on national TV and being watched in a packed stadium by the president and all the ex-presidents.

I didn’t need any jellyfish costume-wearing kids catching on fire and running across the pitch thank you very much. So, much relief was felt when the show was accident free and a spectacular success. Well done to all those fantastic participants!

Finally, if you are planning to make bamboo lanterns in a tropical climate, I can recommend storing them well away from termites or other wood loving insects as I’m afraid to say that when I checked in on them a year later (which was a whole other adventure) they had been reduced to a pile of dust.

The fish lantern, apologies for the poor photo!

The lanterns being lit backstage before the show.

I hope this is helpful for someone, if you'd like to read how to make Jelly Fish lanterns, look here: Jelly Fish Lanterns - How to make

Napkin Folding

2011-08-31T15:21:00.005+01:00

Napkin Folding from www.craftbunker.co.uk

Hello there and welcome to another blog post from me…. Zoe!

Today I’m going to teach you how to fold this beautiful flower napkin. This is a great fold for parties, weddings and social dinners. Today I have chosen a very party themed napkin!

You first start by carefully unfolding the napkin and turning it over so the pattern is on the underneath.

Once out flat, start by folding each of the four corners into the centre.

Once they are all folded repeat the process with the four new corners.

And finally again with the last four corners, so you should have repeated the first process three times.

Now turn over your napkin, so your folded side is underneath.

And repeat, folding the new corners into the centre as before, only once this time however. At this point you should have your four corners folded on the front, and some loose flaps on the back

Your napkin should look quite small by now and it might be trying to undo its self, so you will need to keep a firm hand on it.

The next stage is where it gets a bit tricky. While holding the napkin in place, gently fold over the very top corner of one of your four corners. It does not need to be a big fold, perhaps 1 cm.

Once you have this fold, hold it with your thumb, and gently pull the loose flap from the underneath, over the top to form a petal shape.

Do this to all four corners. This might take a little practice as you have to also hold the centre of the napkin to prevent the other corners coming undone.

Once you have done this you will see that on the underside there are still some loose flaps.

What you will need to do is one by one gently pull them upwards so to create the leaves.

Do this again with the final lot of loose flaps and you should be left with a beautiful flower napkin that will look good on any plate at any party!

Thanks for watching and why not visit our website at www.craftbunker.co.uk

Enamel Blog

2011-08-25T21:50:00.010+01:00

How To Enamel!

Hello, Zoe here again and welcome to our ‘How To Enamel’ post.

Right then, firstly you need to have a good base to enamel on. It has to withstand temperatures of over 1,000 degrees so the best metal for the job is copper.

I’m going to be using recycled copper piping, the stuff that you find in your house (not that you should go ripping up your house just for this ha ha).

Firstly you will need to cut the piping to the correct length. I have used a metal tube cutter as this gives a nice even edge, but you can use a saw if you don’t have this lovely tool. Once the correct length saw lengthways down the middle so to be able to bend it flat.

Next I am going to fire the copper tube in the kiln. This makes the copper really pliable, so making it really easy to bend. Once the copper is red hot, using some metal enamelling pliers, CAREFULLY remove it out of the kiln and submerge it into cold water.

Once it is out of the water you will find that the copper is very easy to bend and you will be able to flatten it out. The way I did this was by bending it out with my hands, then using a vice with aluminium plates to gently squash the copper in between the plates until flat.

Be warned though as the more you bend it the harder the copper will become. If you bend it too much you might have to fire it again, and this will make it weaker!

Next you might want to drill holes in your copper if you are going to turn it into a necklace.

Using a small vice and a pillar drill gently drill through your pre marked and punched holes.

You should now have your base!

The next step is enamelling. You need to make sure your copper is clean and ready to accept the enamel. Using a glass brush (a small brush made from fibreglass) scuff up the backside of your copper.

Then, using a fine sieve, gently build up a layer of counter enamel (special backing enamel) over the back of your copper piece.

You want to make sure the layer is quite thick, may be about 5mm, although it helps to work out what is right for your kiln.

Once you have your enamel on your copper, using the metal enamelling tongs, carefully place the copper with counter enamel onto the wire grill in the kiln. This will be very very very hot so please be so careful when doing this!!!

Watching through your small window, try and judge when the enamel powder has started to melt, the timings will be very different with each kiln. With my kiln it happened at about 40 seconds. You can tell when it is starting to go as the powder will go hard and then cracks will appear, shortly after this stage it will melt into one form.

Once melted, remove (with the metal enamel tongs) and leave on a heatproof block to cool down, this again varies but should take about 10 mins.

Once cool you can repeat the process on the other side using your chosen enamel colours.

And now you have a lovely piece of enamelled copper!

A few useful hints and tips to remember:

• Always enamel the back first with the counter enamel as this helps stop the front from peeling off.
• If you don’t want the back to stick to the grill when you are firing the front with your enamel colour, you might want to erect a small platform for your work to balance on, using nails or other metal that can withstand the heat, but wont melt in the kiln.
• Always use glove and the tongs when firing, it gets pretty hot and will burn your skin right off if you touch it at all! I should know as I did it a few times and it really really hurts!!!

• If you want to get a bit fancy with your enamelling then you can always etch a design into the copper first (please see the Craft Bunker ferric chloride etching blog). Once you have etched your design then mix a small amount of de-ionised water into some powder to form a thick paste, and carefully paint on in the areas you want to ‘colour in’. Pop it on top of the kiln to dry out for 5 mins, and then carefully put it into the kiln to fire! You don’t want to put it in while the glass paste is still wet because as the moisture evaporates in the kiln it can deform the nice neat pattern you have created!

feel free to check out our website! www.craftbunker.co.uk

Union Flag Bag

2011-08-16T23:06:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd share the new bag I've made for 'Duckie, Best of British' at the Southbank Centre in London.

It's mostly made from recycled fabric: The off white base of the 2 side panels is from an old tablecloth, the sparkley sides are off cuts from work and the zip is left over from another project. The polka dot blue fabric of the lining was left over from a 'wishing waterfall' installation I did a few years ago.

Who says all those piles of fabric and off cuts don't come in handy!

They're a bit hard to see but it's got 2 small chain handles, that I also bought for another project but never used.

If you want to see the rest of the (slightly ridiculous) outfit I'll be wearing then you'll have to come along to the event!!

How to Make a Pretty Rose.

2011-07-31T18:49:00.001+01:00

How to Make a Rose in Polymer Clay (Fimo)

Polymer Clay Rose

Hello there, and welcome to another blog post from me…. Zoe!

Today I am going to show you how to make a rose using polymer clay or FIMO.

This technique can be used with all sorts of different materials such as clay, plasticine, paper and even icing sugar paste! (The stuff you can roll out flat).

The same technique applies to all materials, but in the case of the sugar paste you might need to use a little water to adhere the rose petals together. With paper, glue can be used.

I have decided to use a very vibrant pink colour Fimo today, for no other reason than the fact that I like it!

Petals in progress

Once you have selected your colour, (which you can buy on eBay or at any good craft shop) you will need to make between 8 – 20 petal shapes, making sure the top edge is quite thin and delicate.

The more petals you have the bigger the final rose will be.

Curl a petal to make the centre

Once you have your Fimo petals, take one and roll it in on itself as shown on the right.

Petal centre

This is your flower centre, so the tighter it is rolled, the smaller and more delicate the flower will be.

Wrap petals on centre to make rose

Then you will need to start layering up your rose petals. To do this take one of your pre-cut petals and wrap it around the centre, making sure that it completely covers the ‘join’ mark of the centre petal, as shown right.

You will then need to wrap another petal around, but on the opposite side, so to give a bit of balance to your rose. Always remember to keep the thin edge at the top!

Flower takes shape

Keep applying the layers in this way, using your artistic flare to make the rose grow in the way you want it to.

If you are making the rose out of paper, try to avoid glueing near the top, as this would make the petals harder to bend into shape.

Once you are happy with the way your rose looks, you will probably need to trim the bottom to tidy up where the layers have been applied. Once trimmed, gentle tweak the edge of the petals, creating ripples and giving the flower movement and shape.

To fix the shape of the polymer clay, place it into a pre heated oven at 110 degrees Celsius for about 35 mins.

Alternatively bake it for 30 mins at 140 degrees Celsius. If it is baked for less time/lower temperature it is more likely to end up slightly brittle and the end result would be fragile.

The finished item could be varnished with clear acrylic varnish and made into a brooch, present decoration, magnet, birthday card - options are endless as they say!

Thanks for reading!

Bruising Effect Blog

2011-07-25T14:49:00.001+01:00

Bruise Effect Blog

Hi there Zoe here! In this blog post I’m going to show you how to create a TV realistic looking bruise, suitable for any casualty effect, or even better for a Halloween costume to freak out your friends and family!

For this you will only need a Mehron Procolouring Bruise wheel, which you can buy online on eBay for about £10. This bruise wheel should last your for ages and ages (all depending on how often you use it).

Ok so here goes, first select the hand/limb/face/body part you want to work on. I have chosen my hand, as it is easier for me to apply the make-up to!

Start by using the bright red colour. Apply the make-up with your finger in a dabbing effect where you want your bruise to go. Really think about this, as a fresh bruise will just be bright red, but the older it gets the colours will change to a more green/yellow hue. It might help to have some bruising reference so you get the look you want just right.

You don’t need to add a lot, in fact the lighter you dab it, the more realistic it will look.

Once you have your red centre where you want your bruise to start, then start adding in the other colours. You will want to use the black and dark red in and around the bright red centre you have created. Again use this sparingly as it will look too over the top other wise, and remember to always use a dabbing motion, NEVER RUB!

Once you are happy with the colouring, start to then add the yellow and the green around the edges of the of the red centre, occasionally dabbing into the red centre to give it some randomness!

Once you’re happy with the basic colouring and Bruise effect, gently blend out the yellow and green with your fingers so to make it look more realistic.

You should then have a bruise effect you are proud of!

For a facial bruise really think about how the person got it, so where the main red centre would be. For example if I was punched in the eye area, the eye socket bone would take the force of the blow, so that would be the reddest part (due to the thinness of the skin) then the bruise would carry on out around it and under the eye.

Thanks for Watching! xxxx

Red Wooden Heart - French Polishing

2011-07-23T23:24:00.000+01:00

The heart will go from bare wood to shiny red!

Now for the fun part - making it shiny!!

By now you should have a 3D heart with all the major sanding done and only surface finishing left to complete.

For the finishing, you will need:

The sanding sealer and shellac that you mixed up previously - the recipe and blog post is here.
A small dispenser bottle for the shellac , like an eye dropper bottle, (some pharmacies sell them, but it’s not 100% necessary)
Fine sandpaper (at least 320 grit) for your orbital sander and sanding block
The tack cloths and OOOO wire wool mentioned previously.
A clean white cloth or brush for applying the sanding sealer.
A small amount of wool or cotton, some 6inch x 6inch pieces of soft cotton (an old t-shirt) for your muneca, and a glass jar with a lid for storing it in.
A dust mask for the sanding.
Possibly: alcohol (no, not for drinking), FFFF-grade pumice, a salt shaker, pure oil (e.g. Olive oil)

Applying Sanding Sealer
Now it’s time to break out the sanding sealer! Using a clean white cloth or an old brush, apply all over the surface. Pretty hard to do both sides at once unless you’ve found a way to levitate it, so do one side at a time. Let it soak in for 30 seconds or so and wipe off any excess.

When it’s dry (you won’t have to wait long), sand lightly with 320 grit sand paper, or the finest you have, still using your orbital sander. The goal isn’t to remove lots of surface material but just to knock back the grain.

Apply more sanding sealer, let it dry and hand sand from this point on. It’s best to use a sanding block for the flatter bits of the heart, otherwise they might come out a bit uneven.


A new muneca ready to be charged, an old one, and a storage jar.

Make your Muneca!
This is how we’re going to apply the shellac to the heart. The muneca is a wool or cotton core surrounded by a cotton cloth – it’s best if they’re both white, but as long as the dye won’t run when mixed with the meths, then it’ll be fine.

You’re supposed to use real wool to help the proper distribution of the shellac, but I didn’t have any, so cotton wool was a good substitute (I can hear the purists screaming!). A lot of people seem to use old t-shirts for the outside of the muneca, but I used a scrap of soft white cotton fabric.

Put a tight ball of wool (about an inch in diameter, once squeezed tight) in the middle of a 6in x 6in square of soft cotton (old t-shirt fabric is perfect) and gather the corners together so the wool is trapped inside. The inner core will act as a reservoir to dispense the shellac, which is applied to the inside wool core, and squeezed out from the contact pressure with the surface of the work-piece.

Shellac can be a sticky thing to apply and a lot of folks that are masters of French Polishing and make beautiful guitars & furniture recommend that you add a couple of drops of pure oil to the outside of the muneca to assist the application - The oil helps it glide over the surface of the wood.

I’d read that the oil rises to the surface and then needs to be removed by alcohol before moving onto to applying the next layer of shellac, so I decided to see what happened if I left this bit out. All in the nature of experimenting you understand... I found the first 8 coats or so to be very easy to apply, and only after that did I experience the muneca sticking a little bit. I guess on balance, don’t mess with the experts, but if your object is small or an odd shape (i.e. not smooth and flat) then you can probably avoid adding oil.

Shellac Sealing Coat
Wipe the surface dust off with a tack cloth. This is to remove any surface dust so that it’s not trapped under subsequent layers.

To begin applying the sealing coat, make the core of your muneca moderately damp with shellac by applying a good few drops of your 2lb cut. You don’t want to saturate it – too much is not a good thing here! Fold up the corners and slightly twist the end in the outer fabric to make it easier to hold.

Tap it on the back of your hand to evenly distribute the shellac through the core, and then tap on a piece of paper to make sure you haven’t put too much in. You don’t want to leave a puddle of shellac on your wood – the idea is to apply lots of very fine thin layers that amalgamate together.

These first few layers are to act as a base for the rest of the shellac and should be applied along the grain of the wood. I started in the middle at the top and ended at the tip of the heart. You should keep your pad moving the whole time – avoid pausing at the start and finish points, many people recommend a landing and taking off action, like an aeroplane, to start and stop.

Use less pressure when the pad is wetter and more pressure as it runs dry. Replenish with a few more drops of shellac as it dries out.

Wait a few minutes between coats and apply 3 of these ‘sealing’ coats in total. Now, store your pad in a sealed jar and leave your piece to dry thoroughly.

Layering up the first few coats of shellac on the heart.

Using pumice (or not) to fill the grain
Some woods (e.g. rosewood) need to have their grain filled at this point, and this is what I would definitely do if I were using ‘real’ wood (with an open grain) instead of just plywood. As it was, I just rubbed down the surface in between coats using wire wool and I still got a pretty shiny finish.

Obviously this isn’t a purist’s project, as I tend to like to experiment, but if you want a beautiful glass-like finish, instead of one that’s just really shiny, then this is how you achieve it:

You’ll need some FFFF-grade pumice in a salt shaker, a new pad cover, some pure oil (olive is fine) and some alcohol.

Replace your pad cover, add 8-10 drops of alcohol to the core and shake a small amount of pumice onto the surface of the pad. Never apply pumice directly to the wood.

Using random circular motions, work the pumice into the grain, covering a small area at a time. Reapply pumice and alcohol when necessary – you will begin to see a real difference in the surface of the wood. This stage is finished when you’ve gone over all the areas and the grain is filled and the surface smooth.

I might still go back and do this stage just to see what happens – it’s never too late to fill the grain!

You can see the colour and shine developing.

The true French Polish bit
So if you have indulged in filling the grain properly (unlike me, being a renegade), you’ll need to replace the cover on your muneca pad. Add some 2lb cut shellac to the inner core, just like for the sealing coats, and after tapping it on the back of your hand and a piece of paper (like you should every time you re-charge it), start to apply it to the surface of your piece in random movements.

Don’t go with the grain this time, just move the pad all over without pausing or stopping on the surface. The idea is to apply lots of thin layers that will knit together, and the random-ness of your movements helps this. Some people use a figure-of-eight, or oval shape to move their pad in, and I don’t think it matters as long as there’s an even coating on all bits at the end of the day.

I rubbed mine down with wire wool in-between the first few coats, followed by a wipe with a tack cloth to remove surface dust.

You can apply quite a few thin coats at once, but then you should leave it a few hours to properly dry. If you are experiencing the sticky-ness problem and have been using a few drops of olive oil to lubricate your pad, then you should wipe the surface of your piece with alcohol to remove the oil before commencing with the next polishing session. Just charge the core of your pad with a few drops of alcohol and stroking along the grain is fine. This application of alcohol is called Spiriting.

You might have guessed by now that the trick here is LAYERING. A really good shiny finish is made by lots and lots of thin layers of shellac.

So you should repeat the application of layers of shellac, followed by spiriting if necessary, until you get the finish you want. You can see it develop quite quickly, but as you have to leave it between sessions the whole process can take a week or more.

The last few coats develop a deep richness to the colour and shine.

I was happy after about 20 coats, but I lost track of exactly how many coats I applied – it’s easy to get addicted to the shine and the amount of coats becomes irrelevant. Just a few more coats, and it will be perfect…

I considered my heart finished after a good few layers of this last stage, but some people make it even more shiny by applying a few coats of a weaker cut of shellac, a 1lb cut is not unusual. There's lots of different recipes and techniques and more details can be found here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57229701/FrenchPolishing-01
http://milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html
http://doit101.com/Woodworking/frenchpolishing.htm

And there's a great French Polishing trouble shooting/ Q & A guide here (with specific reference to guitar-making): http://www.guitarsinternational.com/article.cfm/ArticleContentId/11

The finished heart!

Red Wooden Heart - Sanding and filling!

2011-07-19T23:44:00.002+01:00

First half pre-sanding.

Right, now you should have 2 separate halves of your heart, some sanding sealer and some polish.

For this next stage you will need:

Coarse to fine sandpaper to fit your sander (I prefer aluminium oxide, 80 grit to 320 grit, but surface finishing may require some 400 grit wet and dry paper)
A palm sander (random orbital sander), and if you have the luxury of owning one, a detail sander to get in the top crevice. I don’t have one, and managed ok, but it would have been easier with one.
If you need to fill some cracks, then pva glue mixed with wood dust, with a dash of red acrylic, or your more traditional wood filler.
A dust mask - wear it when sanding, unless you want to cough sawdust for the next week..

Starting to sand the edges off.

I probably don’t need to say it, as it will become obvious pretty quickly, but if you don’t clamp your work piece, you’ll just be chasing it round your workbench with your sander instead of actually removing surface material.

I’ve got a cheap workbench, the kind that has holes in the top where you push in plastic stops. For most jobs it’s a completely useless bit of equipment, but for this, it worked ok. Basically I put stops in around one side and sanded the other side, pushing against the stops, then swapped it round. But anything that prevents the thing moving around will work.

Start with the coarsest sandpaper and work all around the heart, keeping the base plate of your sander flat against the surface. You want to get rid of the steps in-between the layers, making the whole surface flat and smooth. Graduate up to the finer sandpaper as the surface flattens out and you’re just trying to smooth it off, rather than shape it.

The pink bits are home made filler; pva glue mixed with sawdust & paint.

You’ll probably end up with a few places that need a bit of filling. Usually I’d use wood filler, but as I know it doesn’t take stain very well, I decided it would be much better to mix my own.

What I didn’t know was how the coloured polish would react with my home made filler. I could have tested it of course, but as this whole thing was a bit of a test, I decided just to go for it.

So, I mixed pva wood glue with some sawdust (plenty of that around!), and tinted it with acrylic paint to be pink. I wanted it to be red, but it turned out more pink due to the pva being white. Incidentally I did try using some of the wood dye to stain the filler, but it didn't mix well with the pva, so I gave up on that idea.

In hindsight normal wood filler would probably have been ok, as with this method of staining the polish, the colour sits on top of the wood rather than sinking in too much. If I was staining the wood first and applying a clear polish layer over it, it would have been a different story.

Well, whatever filling method you choose, it’s time to smooth it on to fill those gaps. See the photo for the places that I filled – they stand out pretty well, being pink!

One half done, one half just started..

Then while that’s drying, tackle the other half of the heart. Yes, more sanding!! Trust me, it’s all worth it!

When you’ve got both sides filled and sanded to a pretty smooth finish, it’s time to join the 2 halves together! Use a load of wood glue and leave it overnight to dry, ideally clamped if you can – it’s a tricky shape to clamp, so if that sounds impossible, even wrapping tape round it will help. Double check the edges are perfectly matched before you leave it to dry.

If there’s a slight gap between the 2 halves after joining them, then fill and sand that gap away!

You should now have a heart that is 3D, with all the major sanding done and only surface finishing to deal with!

The two halves joined together, although it's pretty hard to tell from this angle!

So, you guessed it, surface finishing is covered in the next post!

Red Wooden Heart - Mixing the Shellac for French Polishing

2011-07-18T23:52:00.001+01:00

Today I'll describe how to mix the sanding sealer and french polish for our pretty red heart. You'll need:

Blonde dewaxed shellac flakes 250g
Methylated spirit 500ml - 750ml, depending on the size of your project.
Ultra fine (0000 grade) wire wool
A tack cloth (I bought a pack of 10 but only used two)
Wood dye for French polish in red and black (Only using red would make the red much brighter, I preferred a darker colour.) (n.b. This is a link to their ebay shop, as I couldn't find it on their website, but if the link dies then contact Endless Green direct.)
A couple of glass jars
3 plastic spoons for mixing the dye. ( 1 for red, 1 for black and 1 for mixing)

Blonde dewaxed shellac, Powdered wood dye and a tack cloth.

A note about Shellac: I chose the blonde dewaxed variety as it is well known for drying clear – I wanted to have a good clear base for mixing the dye, without tints of brown etc.

A note about methylated spirit – in the UK, meths is dyed purple, which can affect the final colour of your polish. I didn’t mind the purple tint for this project, but if I wanted to be sure of a pure, clear polish, I would have used Spirit Thinners.

First up, mix your sanding sealer – what’s the point of that I hear you ask? I mean we’re going to slap this sealer on our piece and then just sand it off – why bother? Well, it soaks into the wood raising and hardening the wood fibres, which then are easier to sand off and it fills the grain in the process. Which means the end result will be smoother. It also stops the following coats of polish from being absorbed into the wood, which gives a better shine. So if you like really smooth shiny things (and who doesn’t) use sanding sealer!

Sanding sealer: 1 part Shellac to 5 or 6 parts methylated spirit.

Put the ingredients in a glass jar, give them a stir and a shake and leave them until the shellac has dissolved. This might take a few hours. Persuade it a bit by agitating it occasionally. Don’t worry too much about getting the measurements exact, vaguely right is good enough.

Label and DATE THE JAR! I know it’s not jam, but it still goes off. After 6 months it might not dry properly, which is why it’s so much better to make your own sealer and polish, as who knows how long the ones in the shops have been sitting there for?

And unfortunately for those people living in sunnier places than Britain, it’s best to store it below 24°C (75 °F). So yes, it might rain a lot here, but at least we can store our sanding sealer and polish.

(Incidentally I’ve read that some folks prefer 1/3 shellac, 1/3 meths and 1/3 boiled linseed oil (not raw) for their sanding sealer – apparently it extends the drying time, useful for big pieces I guess, but I’m not sure what else – has anyone used this mix??)

The mix of French polish is referred to as ‘The Cut’, and is traditionally expressed in lbs per gallon; meaning how many lbs of shellac are dissolved in a gallon of meths. E.g A 2lb cut is 2lbs shellac dissolved in a gallon of meths. A 2 lb cut is very popular – and it's worth noting that the more shellac you add, the harder it is to work. Some folks use a 4lb cut for ‘knotting’ to seal that pesky resin in, when working with knotty wood.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I started storing gallons of meths in my loft I think the fire brigade might have something to say about it, and I’d have to be polishing night and day to use that up within 6 months.

So, scaling things down a bit, a good ‘cut’ to start with is:

French Polish: 1/4lb (113 grams) dissolved in 1 pint (500mls) of meths.

(This is still classed as a 2lb cut but without using a gallon of meths! And to be honest for this project you could probably half this, as you’ll still have loads left over.)

Label the jar with the ‘Cut’ and the date, then shake and leave it, just like the sanding sealer. Some folks strain it through cheesecloth when it’s dissolved, but frankly I didn’t bother. Some recipes for French polish also suggest adding linseed oil and sandarac (a kind of natural gum) which helps improve resistance to scratches, but I left these out as well.

Lots of layers will give a deeper colour.

At the moment, the polish is slightly purple (from the meths). To get that deep red colour, wait till the shellac has dissolved and add some dye. To control the process, I dissolved some of the red dye separately in a small amount of meths, with a tiny bit of black. Add the black in really small amounts (it’s really strong) until you get a good colour – then add to the polish a bit at a time to get the colour you want.

Remember you’ll be layering up the polish so the more layers you put on, the deeper the colour will be. I must admit, that bit can be kind of addictive as you see the colour developing – just one more layer…

But before we can get anywhere near polishing, there’s a bit of sanding to do… all covered in the next post…

Red Wooden Heart - Cutting it out.

2011-07-17T18:50:00.001+01:00

Ok, in my previous post I gave you a template that you could resize. I should probably say that if you’re going to make it really small or much bigger, then you’ll need to change the thickness of the wood accordingly.

So for a small heart (say 15cm/6in across) maybe use 9mm ply and one larger than 25cm/10in, use 18mm ply. Otherwise the small one will be really fat and the large one will be really thin in proportion to the outline.

My heart is double sided, which means you have to cut everything out twice, and join the 2 halves back to back. But you could just do one side, with a flat back, and then it could be hung on a wall.

Adjusting the footplate to 45 degrees.

The angled plate, looking from the front.

I cut my heart shapes out with the blade of my jigsaw at 45 degrees to create an angled cut. You could also do this on a bandsaw by tilting the bed, but if you don’t have one a jigsaw works just fine. To change the cutting angle of your jigsaw, change the angle of your footplate – there’s usually a nut of some kind underneath the plate that will allow this adjustment. Mine needs an allen key (hex key), but they’re all different.

You must clamp your work securely before cutting the pieces, and beware of hitting things with the blade underneath the wood, as the blade is protruding at an angle you may not be used to! I drilled 10mm pilot holes to make it easier to change direction at the tip and at the top of the heart where the two bumps join in the middle.

I started at the bottom and cut round in one direction. It’s a bit awkward in the middle at the top, and if you find this too hard to change direction in this tight spot, then cut one side and then change the footplate to be angled 45degrees the OTHER WAY and cut the other side from the bottom up as well. If you do it this way and don't change the angle of the footplate to do the other side, the angle of the edges will be different on the 2 sides. One will go 'out' and one will go 'in'.

Or you could always cut it out with a regular 90 degree angle blade and do lots more sanding!

When you’ve got all your layers cut out, glue them together (using wood glue), keeping the 2 halves separate for now. Start with the biggest piece and work up to the smallest piece. I added a couple of panel pins as well, just avoid the edges if you follow suit, as you’ll be sanding some of the edge away, and sanding down nails isn’t very easy!

One side glued and pinned - leave to set overnight.

You need to leave the glue to set overnight before commencing sanding, but in the meantime, you can get to grips with shellac. I decided to keep the shellac mixing and methodology all in the next post, instead of breaking it up..

Red Wooden Heart - Making The Templates

2011-07-13T02:09:00.002+01:00

So to make the wooden heart, the first step was to cut out lots of concentric heart shapes from 12mm plywood. I used exterior ply as that's what my local hardware shop had, but almost any ply would do as long as it's flat (so don't use shuttering/elliotis ply which is often warped).

Below is an image with the outline of all the hearts in different colours. Just download it (using the arrow button on the bottom of the window) and resize it to your requirements by opening it in Illustrator or Inkscape (a free program you can get here: http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en ) Each individual heart layer should remain editable in these 2 programs by just ungrouping the image - not that you'd probably need to do that, you can resize the whole thing all together by just pulling the corner arrows.

Or alternatively, just print it out and use a photocopier to enlarge it and copy it, cutting out the size of heart you want for each layer.

My red wooden heart is approx 25.5cm (10in) in width and height.

If anyone has problems with this I can email you all the individual layers separately if necessary, just leave a comment..

So when you've got your individual heart layers the correct size and cut out, stick them onto your plywood with glue so they won't move. I usually use display mount, but pritt would work or a similar paper glue. You want it to be stuck on mainly round the edge you're cutting out - so it's not necessary to put glue in the middle of the image.

Cutting out the wood and making the french polish will be covered in the next post..

Red Wooden Heart, an Experiment in French Polishing

2011-07-10T21:56:00.001+01:00

A wooden heart is the next experiment I’ll describe over the next few blogs. Cutting out some heart shapes and glueing them together is not especially difficult, but I’d never worked with shellac before and I wanted to try out French polishing - I thought it was a bit of a challenge to French polish the end-grain of plywood.

This is end result and it's a long way off from being perfect, I could have done way more layers, but the colour has a nice depth and ultimately I was pleased with the result as a first try.

I’ll break down the process over the next week.

Ferric Chloride Etching - More Detailed Description

2011-06-25T21:41:00.005+01:00

OK, so for those of you who want a more in depth description of this etching lark..

We etched solid brass plate and composite plates made from a thin surface layer of copper and a black layer underneath that are normally used for making PCB boards. The nice thing about the composite boards is that the etching process burns through to the black underneath layer, making the etch really stand out. (There's an exmaple of this at the end.)

So the first thing to do is to make your artwork the right size and get it onto acetate. We printed it from a computer using an inkjet printer. This is used to block areas of light when exposing it under a light box later, but there is no toner transfer onto the boards so it doesn’t matter which side of the transparency the image is on or whether you use a laser or inkjet printer.

Artwork ready for process

The image must be black and white with the white areas being the parts that you’d like etching. The black part of the image should extend to cover the edge of the metal otherwise you’ll use up etching solution needlessly. The process works better with very clear and well defined black and white images. Areas of grey in the original artwork tend not to work so well.

Oh, and we discovered that getting your acetate wet isn’t a good idea – it removes the ink, so avoid handling your acetates with wet hands/spilling tea on them etc.

Cutting boards down on the guillotine

You may also need to cut your boards down to size to match your artwork. We used a metal guillotine, but I’m sure a hacksaw would have worked just as well. I can recommend splitting designs up, so there’s only one per board, and keeping designs small until you’ve got the hang of it.

It seems there’s a lot of variables that can affect the process and it’s easy to change the outcome by mistake. Something that might help could be a tester strip of metal with a matching acetate that is purely used for testing the exposure levels. This will need to be prepared at this stage if you’re going to use it, I’ll explain more about this as we go along.

Plate that wasn't prepared properly.

Right, the next stage is super important unless you want some slightly unpredictable arty effect. The image to the right is what happens if the plate isn’t cleaned properly before spraying with photo-resist…

Clean your plates!

So, clean clean clean! We used 1000 grit wet and dry paper to lightly sand the surface in small circular movements. After drying the metal, we wiped it with a product called FLU, used for PCBs, but isopropyl alcohol works the same. Use a lint-free cloth if you can, we found that even the slightest bit of dust on the surface at this stage can affect the quality of the final piece. This also includes finger prints. We were being really careful and still managed to get a hair on one of them!

Put your beautifully prepared metal sheets/boards on some small blocks of wood, so that the edges overhang - this is not essential but it makes the boards easier to pick up without touching the surface.

Spray plates with photo resist

Photo resist

Wearing a mask that will protect you from toxic vapour, spray the photo resist evenly onto all the boards at once. It goes a dark green so you can see it. Any uneven spraying will mean uneven etching, so be careful to get it right.

The wavelength of the light that affects the photo resist will be on the packaging somewhere. All light outside of that wavelength are ok to use as lighting when preparing the exposed boards. So, for ours, a normal incandescent light bulb in the oven is ok, but doing the process in a room lit with daylight probably isn’t.

Basically light from the UV end of the spectrum should be avoided at this stage. For the photo resist to properly cure, ours could be left in a totally dark place for 12 hours, or baked in a low oven.

This stuff stinks and is probably really toxic so DON’T put it in same oven you use for food. No really, don’t even consider it. We used one of those small table top ovens that is only used for this purpose. We cooked all the plates together at 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) for 20 mins. Like all odd cooking experiments it’s probably wise to set a timer.

Protect the plates from daylight/uv light.

After ‘cooking’ the plates let them cool down a bit, then put them in something to protect them from light. We used an anti-static black bag usually used for electronic components but the kind of bag unexposed photography paper comes in would work the same. So would most clean containers with a lid.


Vacuum plate with artwork

So the next stage is layering up the acetate and the plate and exposing it to light. It might be ok if you just put one on top of the other and put it in a light box, but the less air between the image and the plate, the better the image quality will be. We happened to have a home-made vacuum plate type device at hand (thanks to Zoe’s Dad) and the set up was like the drawing below.

I think in the light boxes you can buy, the light source is at the bottom and so the whole thing is flipped upside down. The ones you can buy allow the lid to rest on the artwork so I think this eliminates the need for a vacuum plate, but maybe someone that's used one can help me with this point?

Remember that it’s better to handle the plate in light that will not affect the photo resist, so avoid sunlight or UV light.

Now is the time to work out how long to expose your pieces for. The main variable factor in this whole process seems to be the relationship between the amount of photo resist sprayed onto the surface and the amount of light to expose it to. The quality of the artwork also has a bearing, but generally, the clearer and more defined the image, the better the outcome.

So get your tester strip, or the artwork that is least important, and for this one only, stick the artwork to the plate using a small amount of clear tape. Then, get your stopwatch ready and with the exposure light on, gradually cover it up in small sections that are timed at equal intervals eg From 2 minutes, cover the strip incrementally every 30 seconds.

This exposes different parts of the strip to different amounts of light to give you an idea of how much to expose all your other plates for the optimum exposure. Maybe you could make the artwork for the test strip read the amount you are going to expose it for under the light. So you don’t have to remember it later – it’s burnt into the board.

Our 'tester' strip

There’s various ways of exposing your plates to light, most people probably end up making a box, as the alternatives can be pricey. Here’s one that RS Components sell: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=0555279 for £147.56, but here’s instructions on how to make one if you’re that way inclined: http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/mcu/010/index.html

Developing the plate. Notice the 'smoky' surface.

Anyway, after exposure, put it back it into its protective anti-light cover and get ready to develop it.

We used ‘Universal Developer’ from RS, mixed up with de-ionised water. Put the test strip/plate into a shallow tray containing the developer face up, and agitate slightly. You will see the surface start to change, It’s hard to describe, but it looks kind of smoky. We found light stroking over the surface of the plate helped the process along.

When the surface has stopped ‘smoking’ it has stopped developing and you can rinse it in water.

Putting masking tape on back

Then dry it, and put masking tape over the whole of the back surface with a long overhang on both sides that you can use as ‘handles’. This stops the etching fluid eating into the plate from the back. I had my doubts about masking tape, I thought we’d have to use stronger tape, but it worked just fine.

Agitate gently updside down in Ferric Chloride.

Now it’s time for the etching! Ferric Chloride works quicker if it’s a bit warm, so we used a small tray of ferric chloride suspended in a larger tray of recently boiled water. You can get the trays, ferric chloride and all sorts of useful other stuff from RS Components: .

They even sell ferric chloride stain remover, which you will probably need unless you wear an apron or some old clothes , it’s horrid stuff. With that in mind I can recommend wearing gloves and goggles, which stupidly we didn’t. Zoe tells me that it hurts if you get it in a cut…um…I think I’ll be avoiding all skin contact with this stuff in the future!

Anyhow, you want to be holding your tape handles and suspending it upside down (ie the side to be etched should be DOWNWARDS) in the ferric chloride, agitating it very slowly. If you don’t agitate it, it won’t etch so well.

Rinsing the plate.

Keep checking it to see how deep the etch it going. Obviously with the tester strip it will etch different amounts according to how exposed the plate was at various points. Continue until you have an area you are happy with and then rinse it with water to stop the etching process.

· We then cleaned the photo resist off with wet and dry paper.

Final clean with wet and dry

Whichever part of the test strip came out the best, expose all your other plates for the same amount of time under the light and repeat the developing and etching process.

If any plates don’t develop satisfactorily, try putting them back in the developing liquid, if that doesn’t work, and the developing liquid has been used before, try using fresh developing liquid. Or as a last resort, try lining up the artwork again and re-exposing it.

This is an example of artwork that didn't work out so well - this scratchy font didn't work in a consistant way. This has been tried a number of times, so I don't think it was just from this one occasion. You can see that the C hasn't etched as deeply as the B. (This plate is a just a thin layer of copper with a black layer underneath that is exposed when the ferric chloride eats away at the copper.)

Artwork

Final plate

And the same goes for this frog. Basically it appears that any areas that are grey or lack definition in the original artwork will not etch well at all.

Artwork (apologies for a slightly fuzzy photo)

Final plate. Zoe calls it the 'Hypno-Toad'.

We got this image from the internet, and if anyone knows who the original artist is we will gladly give them the credit they deserve.

This last plate is solid brass and so we rubbed black paint into it to make the etch stand out. We then cleaned the excess paint off with Brasso (metal cleaner) and lacquered it with clear spray lacquer (available in automotive refinishers or craft shops) to prevent tarnishing.

And that's the end of this little experiment! We're no experts, this is just a description of our experience, but maybe it will help someone trying to figure the process out!

Suppliers for our more unusual materials used were (all UK based):

CPC: http://cpc.farnell.com/

RS Online: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/home.html

Ferric Chloride Etching Using Photo Resist - Summary of Process

2011-06-24T20:15:00.004+01:00

A photo of one of the acetates used.

So I thought I’d share the fun I had learning how to etch using Ferric Chloride last weekend. Thanks to Zoe and her dad for going over the basics with me!

I know there’s folks that know more about this online, so this isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive description of how to do it, but a perspective from an absolute beginner on how to get started. (Although to be fair I had a good head start as I borrowed all the equipment..)

To summarise the process (I’ll write a full description with photos and suppliers afterwards):

We printed out the black and white image onto acetate, making it the same size as the metal to be etched.

We cleaned the surface of the metal with wet and dry paper and FLU (usually used for circuit boards I understand), but isopropyl alcohol would work the same.

The surface of the metal was then evenly sprayed with a good coat of Photo Resist spray.

It was then baked in an oven for 20 mins at 50 degrees C to set the photo resist, then put in an anti-static black bag to protect it from the light whilst moving it about and preparing the light box.

The acetate was carefully laid onto the prepared metal plate and exposed to light. We actually used a vacuum-plate to make sure there was no air between the image and the plate, then timed the exposure to UV really carefully.

Once exposed we then put the acetate to one side and used developing liquid to develop off the exposed part of the photo resist.

After rinsing, this was then gently agitated, upside down, in a ferric chloride bath, that was sitting in warm water. Probably should mention that you should avoid getting it on your skin or clothes, it’s not very nice stuff. After getting up close and personal with this stuff I can honestly say an apron, protective chemical-proof gloves and goggles are recommended. And I know it’s obvious, but with all nasty chemicals, store out of reach of children and away from pets. The developing liquid is not as bad, but best to be over cautious.

You have to keep checking how deep the etch is taking, by having a quick peek, but a few minutes was enough for the small ones we were doing.

We then rinsed the metal plates with water, and cleaned the photo resist off with wet and dry paper.

The final etched plate after rubbing paint into the etch and lacquering.

Technically that’s the etching process done, but it looks nice if you rub something black like paint into the surface and rub it off – the black sticks in the etch making it show up more. Then the plate should get cleaned with metal cleaner and lacquered to prevent tarnishing.

Originally I thought Zoe had just got this image off the internet, but it's one of her very own. Here's a link to her folksy shop so you can see some of her other work: http://www.folksy.com/shops/Zfarley1,

Zoe's Etsy shop is here: http://www.etsy.com/people/CraftBunker,
and her Mudpool shop is here: http://mudpool.co.uk/SellerDetails.aspx?Id=280&vw=Items

Right, in the next post I'll write the more in depth version of the process we followed with photos and suppliers!

Etched Brass Plate

2011-06-23T22:45:00.004+01:00

So here is one of the plates that we etched, it's a design that I (Edwina) did for Kinetika to be printed on the skin of one of their puppets.

It was the first thing that came to hand, and it turned out pretty well for a test. All thanks to the previous experiments by Zoe and her Dad. I'll be posting all about those shortly, but the description is pretty long, so I might have to break it up.

Hello world!

2011-06-18T23:23:00.000+01:00

Hello there crafters, we're a new bunch of makers who have come together to share some fun making stuff with you. Today we learned the finer points of Ferric Chloride etching and will share this with you shortly!