Goodbye Milliput, hello Cx5?
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:57 am
We recently had the pleasure of a visit from Mike Cecil and his wife Krystii. Mike is renowned Centurion expert and Krystii is a professional artist of some renown. Krystii paints and sculpts and, seeing what we do with Milliput, she suggested looking at a new material Cx5. I was so impressed by the instructional video available for download that I've ordered some from the States. Cx5 is a temperature sensitive material that behaves like clay, wax, plastic, and even paint at different temperatures.
The supplier is Adam Beane, who is no mean sculptor:
His website is here:
http://www.adambeaneindustries.com/
This gives a taste of the material:
I can already see some possible applications:
- welds: extrude a length, warm it, fold it into position, use a spatula to shape. The most significant advantage is that it's infinitely reworkable just by applying heat but when cooled, as hard as a dense polymer plastic. I don't yet know what its adhesion properties are like so it may need a few spots of CA to retain in position.
- creating masters for casting: it's easy to join, form, machine, turn, sand, cut. It can be used like a paint to cover surfaces or material, which can then be permanently shaped. It's quite expensive, so I'd still probably cast multiple parts in resin.
- building parts: it can be formed into blocks, cylinders, thin sheets etc. The ability to join with heat and add or subtract material easily would lend itself to making complex parts such as boxes, bins, lights, sight hoods, the applications seem endless.
I'll report once I've had a go. Goodbye Milliput? Thanks Krystii.
Regards
Stephen
The supplier is Adam Beane, who is no mean sculptor:
His website is here:
http://www.adambeaneindustries.com/
This gives a taste of the material:
I can already see some possible applications:
- welds: extrude a length, warm it, fold it into position, use a spatula to shape. The most significant advantage is that it's infinitely reworkable just by applying heat but when cooled, as hard as a dense polymer plastic. I don't yet know what its adhesion properties are like so it may need a few spots of CA to retain in position.
- creating masters for casting: it's easy to join, form, machine, turn, sand, cut. It can be used like a paint to cover surfaces or material, which can then be permanently shaped. It's quite expensive, so I'd still probably cast multiple parts in resin.
- building parts: it can be formed into blocks, cylinders, thin sheets etc. The ability to join with heat and add or subtract material easily would lend itself to making complex parts such as boxes, bins, lights, sight hoods, the applications seem endless.
I'll report once I've had a go. Goodbye Milliput? Thanks Krystii.
Regards
Stephen
