Questions about bending resin??

[Pastor Prime]

Hello,

Been a while since I\'ve posted, very busy. Anyway I have a couple of questions about resin figs as I\'ve never worked with them. I read that it is possible to heat and bend the pieces, how extreme can you get with this?

I want to turn the head on a resin figure (28mm) and flatten out his back as if he is leaning against a wall. Would it be possible to heat the head and neck area and twist it a bit? Would it be possible to heat the figure and smoosh it against something flat to flatten the back? Would I need to worry about the model getting fingerprints moulded into it when it\'s heated?

Thanks for your help, don\'t know if this is getting TOO crazy with resin.

- Q

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Yes, it is possible to bend resin by heating it. GET A GAS MASK OR REALLY GOOD VENTELATION!! Resin is some nasty stuff and outgasses really bad stuff.

I was bending larger stuff and simply held it near a flame. Surprisingly it dosent bubble much at all. One of the pieces actually caught on fire and didnt do as much damage as one might expect!! If you are working with a small piece I would try using a magnifying glass out in the sunshine, waving the \'hot spot\' back and forth over the area to be bent. Experiment with some scrap first. Have a bowl of cold water handy so that once you have things in place you can cool it quickly.

 

[Antenociti]

As shawn says it can be done, however the issue would be getting fine enough control in the exact area you want to manipulate.

EIther a magnifying glass or some other means of pin-point heat application, one of those \"jet-flame\" lighters maybe or a micro-soldering iron (gas powered) with the tip removed?

And, yes, you will need to worry about finger prints or other clamps unless you do manage to control the heat very precisely into a very small area away from where you are holding/clamping it.

 

[Pastor Prime]

Thanks for the tips. Resin is a pretty damn cool material to work with, lot of options if you can basically do minor position changes to a fig without hacking it up.

I had a bit of a revelation this morning while fixing breakfast. My espresso machine shoots out a tiny super heated jet of steam. I grabbed a bit of sprue, placed it beneath the steam jet and twisted it with ease and no finger prints! Pretty exciting. I\'ll keep you posted on how it works with a test model.

- Q

 

[Shawn R. L.]

HAAA!! An espresso machine!! Brilliant!