Casted Kitchen Knife

Objectives

For this project, I created a silicone mold from a previous clay project and later used resin to recast new forms of the clay handle and acrylic blade.

Outcomes

Three separate castings were successfully created from the silicone mold.  The resin was dyed with pastel colors.  The purple casting seemed to be the most complete of the three, with all parts of the mold being filled.  The pink and blue castings both retained a small air pocket in the inner most edge of the blade.  Unfortunately the resin used for the kitchen knife castings is not rigid enough to make them functional as actual kitchen knives.  The purple casting was clipped from its pour spout line, then filed and wet sanded.  The silicone mold was too large to be put into the pressure chamber, contributing to small air bubbles in the resin, but sanding with fine sandpaper let the purple casting be smooth to the touch (despite a spotty appearance).

Process