The Old and the New

It has been very interesting to compare the advantages and disadvantages of Rhino and 3D printing with the work I did over the summer: spin cast pewter.  The vulcanized rubber molds and low viscosity of the pewter can make for extremely high-fidelity, high detail castings for a pretty low cost, though they naturally lack the strength of bronze or silver (or even copper).  However, you can actually cast mountings/pinbacks in place, which is neat, though not magnets given their susceptibility to heat.

I worked for Perth Pewter in Chester, NY, which specializes in larger, more complex pieces for the gift market rather than hobby models.  To give you a sense of the attainable detail, here is a piece slightly more than about four inches high. If anything, the image doesn't do it justice.

Buy me!

Though this is not where I worked, and there are some substantial differences in the details of production
(like the molds' levels of complexity and finishing procedures), this video gives you a taste of the process:

I'm particularly interested in using CAD processes to create armatures for physical sculpting and to make uniform, embeddable objects for casting.