That… did not turn out as planned.

I was trying to cast some Fat Ponies while I was working on my NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) horse… and my lack of attention turned into a pretty big oops!

Normally I set up the magnet leveling jig with the molds and pour in just enough resin to firmly set the round magnets. Then I can carefully pull off the jig without removing the resin from the mold. (The mold will grip the resin just enough that it’s stronger than the magnet-to-magnet pull).

Only this time I wasn’t paying attention and poured it all the way full.

*facepalm*

So now it’s time to try and pull it apart and rebuild! 🙂

Pulling Things Apart

I managed to pour enough resin into the molds that not only did it bind to the magnet, popsicle stick, and end braces… but it also leaked down between the molds.

Whoops… just a smidge too much resin! (Like way too much) ((Srsly))

This meant trying to work it free was going to be a pain the in the neck.

I had originally hoped that I could just cut the resin away from the wood and then pop it off, but since I used super glue to help attach the strip magnet, it left a thin gap under it in places. Which the resin helpfully filled. *sighs*

I had to pull the whole strip magnet off the popsicle stick which thankfully didn’t break. (It’s nice to salvage something from this mess). Unfortunately I had to throw away the end pieces and carve out the strip magnets, so the only things I had left at the end were the stick and two Fat Ponies that need a lot of prepwork.

No ponies were harmed in the making of this disaster

Which is much better than having to throw them out, or do massive resculpting, but it’s still annoying. RAR.

We Can Rebuild Him! (It?)

I didn’t want to use the super glue again for the flat magnet, so I clamped it down with some binder clips and went around all of the edges with wood glue. This will hold it in place and also prevent the resin from leaking under it in the future.

There is no such thing as too many binder clips!

Not that I plan on doing this again. (Although I will probably build another all-wood jig at some point in the future, just because I’m always experimenting! 😉 )

Anywho, once I had the strip magnet solidly back on the popsicle stick, it was time to rebuild the end braces. I didn’t have any

Three cuts to rule– err bend them all!

easy sources of wood on hand this time, so I figured I may as well rely on my old fallback: cardboard and wood glue.

To make the end pieces thick enough I used alternating not-all-the-way-through cuts in a piece of cardboard. This allowed me to make it into a nice folded stack that I used wood glue to bind together. The scrap cardboard was roughly four inches long and I cut it at an inch wide because that’s the width of my metal ruler and I am a lazy crafter. *solemn nod*

I tried to saw through the resulting mess with the saw I use on the basswood, but it turned out to be much easier to slowly cut through it with the xacto knife.

To make a flat end where it would butt up against the molds, I just glued the stacks to another piece of cardboard and then trimmed it to fit. Trimming to fit is much easier than trying to cut the piece perfectly the first time.

It’s not stupid if it works… right?

Then I used a bit of super glue to setup the positioning on either side of the molds… which was followed by (can you guess?) moar wood glue!

The new ends are a lot taller than the old ones, which will give me some room to experiment with raising the magnets slightly above the resin. Having played around with the finished magnets, I think having that slight gap between the resin and the magnetic surface will make the magnets easy to move around when in use.

There is also no such thing as too much wood glue!

So I’m planning on testing it out with a single basswood strip between the top of the mold and the jig. That should give it just the right height. In theory… The hardest part of building things is waiting for the glue to dry before playing with it! *sets jig aside to dry overnight*

Onwards! 🙂