Thinkenstein

I love it! Bravo!

Good job. I love the wood look.

Thanks for the info.

The standard colors for silicone are clear, white, black, gray (silver) and brown (bronze). For other colors you have to mix powdered pigments with clear silicone. The advantage to store bought colors is that you can extrude them directly from the cartridge. If you mix your own colors you have to mix them on a palette and then pack them back into a cartridge, or smaller syringe barrel. I have used the empty silicone cartridges as storage containers and dispensers for acrylic paints. Never tried repacking them with silicone. You can mix small batches of colorized silicone and paint it onto your base silicone for painterly effects, and to economize on pigments. Normal paints don't stick to silicone. You can paint with pigmented clear silicone, though. Silicone sticks to silicon...

The standard colors for silicone are clear, white, black, gray (silver) and brown (bronze). For other colors you have to mix powdered pigments with clear silicone. The advantage to store bought colors is that you can extrude them directly from the cartridge. If you mix your own colors you have to mix them on a palette and then pack them back into a cartridge, or smaller syringe barrel. I have used the empty silicone cartridges as storage containers and dispensers for acrylic paints. Never tried repacking them with silicone. You can mix small batches of colorized silicone and paint it onto your base silicone for painterly effects, and to economize on pigments. Normal paints don't stick to silicone. You can paint with pigmented clear silicone, though. Silicone sticks to silicone. I was seeing dinosaur skeletons when I did this fish, but never got around to it. Hope you get to do the project. Share the results if you do.

Try it.

I no longer have these drums. I don't have any decibel numbers to give you. As I recall, they were loud enough to be useful. Sometimes larger diameter drums don't have the volume you might expect. They don't have to be square. Just get some material and make a set to get a feel for them, and to see if they are loud enough for you.

Thank you.

Thanks. Good luck. The syringe tooters are the simplest place to start, but when you want to move up, try making a silicone rubber mouthpiece. https://www.instructables.com/id/Silicone-Rubber-T...

Glad you like it. Every change you make to the body changes the sound, so tooters can create quite a variety of sounds, since you can stick them on all sorts of bodies. I put one on a trombone, and it sounded like a trombone -- except no need to use the trombone slide to make the melody.

Hi Mina, Silicone sticks like crazy to some things and not so well to others. You mention the "sticky" surface, which tells me you are talking about fresh silicone, and you may be referring to silicone on the hands. Just wiping the best you can with a napkin, or rag is probably the best way. A thin film stays, but eventually wears off. On glass or metal, if it hardens up, you have to cut it off with a knife. Don't get it on your hands to begin with, if you can. Use tools, like a palette knife for working with it.

I like your angle on this idea. I hope you get a chance to try it out sometime.

Hi Ian, You are out of my ballpark here, but I would be tempted to shape the wheel directly, maybe carving the teeth with an x-acto knife into the edge of the wheels. Maybe you could drill the center hole, run a bolt through it as a shaft for a drill press chuck and file the wheel as it spins, to center the circle, and then sharpen up the knife as much as possible for the detail cutting of the teeth. Probably would take more time than it is worth, and might not work, at that. Good luck with whatever you try.

This project came from a desire to have my head fit properly into the masks I make.

You want me to count them for you? I wouldn't want to take away the fun of exploration you are having.

You contemplate an experiment that I would not perform. I have no experience melting PVC, but I doubt it would get runny without first catching fire, especially if the escaping gasses are close to the flame. I imagine that, industrially, the viscous material is pumped into molds under pressure. You would probably be interested in this link. www.preciousplastic.com

Try it to get a feel for how much working time you get. I color clear silicone with powdered pigments. Cheap powdered colors for cement can be found in some hardware stores. More expensive colors come from art supply stores. Mix them with the silicone on a palette with a palette knife. No paints stick well to silicone rubber. If you want to paint it you have to use clear silicone and a pigment.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm here for free consulting if you need me.

Sorry, not interested. You get handy with DIY hardware projects through practice. I want you to be handy even more than I want you to eat blackberries.

Thanks HaydeeJ. Very nice of you to translate this for me.

Is there a translator in the house? Good luck exploring the material. Have fun.

The beaten path to your door starts where? Nice idea. Our rats are about twice as big, so might need another size bottle.

Sounds pretty toxic, risky, and potentially damaging to the solar cells. It might not even melt to pouring consistency.

I have been thinking of using a turned wooden mold and hammering over it to make tootophone bodies like horns. As far as the smaller features go, you can try hammering the foil over a quarter as an experiment. Crumpled foil has too much texture of its own, and hides the details. Put a skin of foil tape over it first and you can pick up a lot of the details. I don't think you can ever duplicate the details that cast metal can get using this technique, but sculptures you make with this technique do end up looking a lot like cast metal.