Fishy stuff

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Austroplatypus
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Fishy stuff

Post by Austroplatypus »

Hi - first posting so I thought I'd show my latest work to test the waters.

I have a large resin encapsulation planned and have only used polyester in the past so needed a test piece to get familiar with epoxy. I had a ceramic head, tail and pectoral fins of a fish kindly made by my partner but no body so it was ideal. I made the enclosure out of White Mahogany with the "waste" section from the profile toolpath as the base. I sat the enclosure on a waxed rubber base for the first pour and when it was hard I removed the rubber and proceeded with the next pour. When the enclosure was half full with the head half embedded and the resin hard I V-carved the skeleton into the resin surface (very, very carefully in order to not damage the embedded head) and my partner inked it in using acrylic inks (she is much better at detailed painting than me). The remainder of the pour was then completed with darkly tinted resin. Because the resin surface which had been in contact with the rubber base was a matt finish I then flipped the now full enclosure over, pocketed out the resin a couple of mm deep
front pocket
front pocket
and filled it with clear coating epoxy to get a nice shiny clear surface. The graphics on the base were designed in VCarve Pro and toolpathed using the Laser Module. This was the first time I'd tried a wraparound design and it went really well. The piece is called "Ish Pish Littlefish".

Overall it turned out pretty well and gave me the confidence to start on the larger encapsulation - a ceramic Weedy Sea Dragon sculpture done by my partner embedded in a faux bronze porthole (assembled out of ply parts cut on the CNC).
front
front
back and right hand side
back and right hand side
alternative orientation
alternative orientation
Greg
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scotttarnor
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by scotttarnor »

That is really cool! Nice work!
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Savannahdan »

Really nice project and the outcome looks great. One of my first projects in cnc was carving a fish skeleton in a chunk of pine wood I cut from a log. My wife is very possessive of it.

garylmast
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by garylmast »

Very Nice.

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Todd Bailey
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Todd Bailey »

What a fun project!!! I really love it.

Thanks for sharing!!!
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sobfu
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by sobfu »

What a great idea and well executed, I am pretty sure my son in law would swap his tropical fish tank for one of them.

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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Luvtocarve »

Impressive! Very well done. Be sure to post the seahorse when completed.
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Austroplatypus
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Austroplatypus »

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.
Savannahdan wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 12:39 pm
Really nice project and the outcome looks great. One of my first projects in cnc was carving a fish skeleton in a chunk of pine wood I cut from a log. My wife is very possessive of it.
Yes I think fish are a great subject for CNC work - no fiddly legs!
Luvtocarve wrote:
Mon Feb 27, 2023 10:04 pm
Impressive! Very well done. Be sure to post the seahorse when completed.
I will post the sea dragon when it's done. At the moment it's giving me headaches as the final resin pour has just clouded a bit and it looks like I might have to machine that layer out and repour with a different resin :cry: Oh well, as Deadpool might say "maximum effort".
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Aussie
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Aussie »

Is the sea dragon a leafy or weedy ?
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Austroplatypus »

Aussie wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 7:38 am
Is the sea dragon a leafy or weedy ?
It's a weedy - no way my partner was going to try making a leafy out of clay. As it was the weedy dropped off various appendages on a regular basis which had to be epoxied back on. It was a bit like wack-a-mole - glue one bit on and in the process knock another off. In fact the fragility of the completed piece gave rise to the decision to encapsulate it. I defy it to keep shedding while buried in resin!
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by jfederer »

Brilliant work! Your process opens up my own projects to new possibilities. Thank you!
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Austroplatypus
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Austroplatypus »

jfederer wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:23 pm
Brilliant work! Your process opens up my own projects to new possibilities. Thank you!
Thanks for the support Joe. Yes incorporating resin in your CNC mindset really opens up lots of creative doors.
Re the weedy seadragon - it's on the wall and we are both pretty happy with it. I'll put up a separate post for it .
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scottp55
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by scottp55 »

VERY well done!! :)
My congratulations! :)
Reminds me of a couple years ago,
my desire to do a whale skeleton fossil carve in soapstone from the Smithsonian's collection of scanned objects.
https://3d.si.edu/explore

May get around to it this year.
Thanks,
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Re: Fishy stuff

Post by Austroplatypus »

scottp55 wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 5:41 pm
Reminds me of a couple years ago,
my desire to do a whale skeleton fossil carve in soapstone from the Smithsonian's collection of scanned objects.
https://3d.si.edu/explore
Hi Scott - the whale skeleton would be pretty funky especially in soapstone.
scottp55 wrote:
Sun Mar 05, 2023 5:41 pm
May get around to it this year.
Yeah I know the feeling - so many things to do - so little time.
Greg
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