Making The Spear

 Greetings

I made my own costume for the Group Green set, but I also made some of Teddy's costume.

Teddy's character was meant to be carrying ( amongst other items) a spear with a vitreous head.

As 'Vitreous' means 'glass-like', I decided to try casting one in resin.

I had never done this before, but looked it up on line and bought the requisite kit.

First, I made a model from card, papier mache and gesso.

I then made a box and suspended the model in the activated silicone mixture.

Once this had set, I cut it in half and removed the model. I then strapped the mould closed with duck tape and tried to caste a blade.

Unfortunately, I used slightly too little resin and the blade came out with a truncated shaft.

I tried to caste a second blade. This time with an opaque resin.

This came out better and I experimented with painting it with opalescent acrylics. I also tried adding a base to the first blade with miliput.

This seemed to be successful and I was able to carve into the milliput and paint it to look like bronze.

I still decided to have another go with the more glass-like resin , ordered some more and caste the third blade.

After due consideration, I decided that the bronze-based head worked best and fixed it to the ash spear shaft once we got to the con.

I did, however, bring the other two blades with me- just in case.

It turned out to be lucky that I did, as the bronze blade shattered unexpectedly during a rehearsal.

We tried every conceivable glue to try to fix it and it seemed to have worked, but it broke again as we waited to go on and we had to hastily replace it with the last one I caste.

This made it through the performance, but must have broken later, as I only have the opaque blade left now as a memento.

So, now I know. If I have to do something similar, I will get extra resin and caste five or six blades-to allow for unexpected breakages.

Until next time

Adieu

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