Does anyone know can you buy acrylic or some type of clear material in liquid form that will dry hard like plactic in a mold or something like that?

It needs to be clear material. This is very important to me, so any help would be greatly appreciated...

Steven

Castin' Craft makes resin and catalyst. I use it all the time. It is generally available at Michael's and possibly Hobby Lobby.

Thanks very much Michael, I'll check it out...

Steven

Woman's clear he nail polish works nicely. Just paint it on the surface of what you are trying to duplicate, let it sit, and peel it off. Among the several uses I found for it, they are great for keeping a liquid in a bottle when its upside down. The only downfall to that is that, depending on what kind you buy (water solubale) (SP?) it could start to disolve into the liquid. If that happens, just don't drink it.

Derek Merdinyan

Much depends on how large surface you'll be doing. There are dental acrylics available as well as that stuff that is used to make unique paper weights that has something-like a flower-inside.

Water-clear resins are also available:

http://www.dickblick.com/zz335/22/

These are all good solutions, but what if I needed to make a much larger amount of something than most people? a few hundred pounds of that stuff would be very
costly. I'd also be hard pressed to figure out how many gallons...?

Steven

Wow, that's a lot! What are you planning to do..? If you don't want to discuss it in public drop me a PM.

Obviusly you need to work with molds (or so I assume) which is always a bit tricky. Maybe having a specialized company do the work for you?

I think I found an off the shelf solution, it's more expensive than I'd like but if
I can skip all that labor time I guess it will be worth it...

Steven

Find a hobby shop that sells trains. They'll have the clear resin, that Michael recommended, used to make bodies of water or building up fiber glass. Will yellow with time.

The yellowing, I think has something to do with the amount of catalyst being used. Most 2-part clear epoxies will yellow if very thick amounts are allowed to quick set. In fact, the stuff gets very hot, and the yellowing is surely a byproduct of this. In some cases, it will turn quite amber colored, almost like carmelized sugar.

The amount of catalyst for Castin' Craft resin is variable depending upon the thickness that will be poured. It may be possible to play with the ratio to see if different results can be had. It can also be poured in thinner layers, built up to the desired thickness.

WalMart also carries a product called, Le Silk Shoppe Acrylic Water Kit. It is a hard setting gel. It takes 1-2 days to set into a hard, but semi-flexible state similar to hard rubber (like a car tire), except it is completely clear. My wife has used it to make floral arrangements.

I am quite curious to know what is being built here...

Check out the list of casting materials at the compleat sculptor website: sculpt.com.
They have something called "Crystal Clear 200".

"A Smooth-On product designed for applications that require absolute clarity. This product will cure at room temperature, but a 150° post-cure will speed it up. The cured castings are UV stable (non-yellowing) and can be pigmented using color dispersions. "

It's $600 for 5 gallons.

Oliver"

Haywire:

Use Future Floor Wax. It is a clear liquid acrylic plastic. People who make their own homemade models use this all the time for different things and to plastic coat non-plastic objects.

Future is a water-soluble acrylic floor coating that was developed by S. C. Johnson Company in Racine, Wisconsin for linoleum flooring.