Sculpture > Vinyl toys

Rikki · Joined: 08 May 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Queensland

Hi people

Does anyone know about ways of making hollow vinyl toys, or rotocasting (eg. are there local places that do it?)?

I'm attempting to design vinyl toys to retail, but would rather not spend the $1000+ the factories charge for metal mould-making. I'm trying to find an alternative.

Any suggestions would be great. As far as I know, they are usually made by spinning the vinyl very quickly (with heat) in a metal mould within the rotocasting machine.

Anyone else here interested in vinyl toys?

Thanks.

-Rikki

lukeo25 · Joined: 08 Feb 2008 Posts: 28 Location: Australia

Hi,

I know this is an old post but I think I can help.

I make one-off sculptures in PET plastic occasionaly. You start by first making a sculpt in plasticine or clay. Shim it carefully and then make a kind of paper pulp - old news papers, bills etc soaked in water then mashed. Cover the mold in the finest paper pulp first. Then build up until you get the pulp covering the whole object. Then while thats drying collect all the PET lemonade coke and soda bottles you can. Now cut them all up into tiny pieces. Then buy some radiator coolant and pour it into a metal container along with the PET pieces

( WARNING THIS STUFF IS DEADLY POISONOUS DO NOT DO THIS AROUND CHILDREN OR ANIMALS AND DO NOT INGEST ANY OF THE LIQUID - IT KILLS QUICKLY ) - wear gloves and a mask.

Your Mold should be dry by now. Carefully disassemble it and remove the plasticine or clay. Reassemble the mold and add another layer of pulp. At this stage you will need an entry hole. When the coolant has dissolved the PET pour it into the hole. Cover the hole with tape and ensure that no leakage can take place. Now begin to rotate the mold in all directions for a couple of hours. The paper pulp will soften a little but hold its shape if it is thick enough. Keep going back and rotate, rotate, rotate. Your paper will eventually dry and the plastic inside should have formed a thick coating. Inspect through the hole every now and again. Once you are certain the mold has dried and the plastic set soak the whole thing in water until the paper has fallen away from the plastic.

( AGAIN I WARN THIS REQUIRES THE UTMOST SAFETY DO NOT DO AROUND CHILDREN AND ANIMALS AND DO NOT KEEP STORED WHERE CHILDREN HAVE ACCESS) Neutral

Luke

Rikki · Joined: 08 May 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Queensland

It scares me that it's been almost a year and I still haven't figured out how to do this.

Thank you so much for the reply Luke, it makes perfect sense! I will definitely give it a try on my next day off. It sounds particularly innovative from the perspective of the vinyl toy world.

Thank you!!!

-Rikki

lukeo25 · Joined: 08 Feb 2008 Posts: 28 Location: Australia

Hi Rikki,

I also remember a friend I had at Disney who was and most likely is still creating vinyl toy mermaids. You should also check him out for info.
His link http://www.blackmermaid.com/art3.html

Regards,

Simon · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 1856 Location: Sydney

My PET isn't dissolving? Are you using green or old red coolant?

Hayley · Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 344 Location: Geelong

wow, I'm really interested in this too. I'd love to give it a go and find out what works. Could you make a multi-use plaster mould with a release agent (such as in ceramic casts) rather than the paper pulp? Any more information/advice would be great.

I have kept an article I found in a magazine about an Australian artist who sourced this type of thing and it tells you exactly who does limited commercial runs of plastic toys made in the spun method. I think they are overseas, but it seemed quite accessible for small artist runs. I will attempt to dig it out (you should see my piles of 'reference materials'!). Give me a couple of days!

Hayley · Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 344 Location: Geelong

I found a copy of the article online, here's the link: http://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=117339

I doubt there would be anyone in Australia that could do small runs for a reasonable price unfortunately, but this gives you lots of technical information on mould making etc and you might want to do some research into companies o/s that do small runs. It all depends on how much you wanted to invest to begin.

Hope that helps.

Keep coming with the info about the PET / radiator coolant stuff though - I'd love to have a fiddle about with that. (I always enjoy finding yet another way to poison my body in the name of art).

lukeo25 · Joined: 08 Feb 2008 Posts: 28 Location: Australia

Hi all,

I'm glad to see there has been new interest in this thread.
I must make a small correction to my original post. The radiator coolant I was using was straight antifreeze. This is triethyl glycol It is pretty hard to get a hold of but will dissolve PET straight away. Sorry to confuse you all. Another less dangerous but more readily available process is to collect all the CD/DVD plastic cases ( the brittle ones made of polyvinyl ) and dissolve them using acetone or turps.

Hope this helps
Luke

pparadoxx · Joined: 22 May 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Rowville VIC

Asssuming you want to use vinyl so that your toys are soft, it's possible to pour silcon into a silicon mold, this would give you a very flexible, finished piece, But it seems a better more cost effective bet would be ' flexible polyurethane foams. Same stuff they make cushions from, and you can do this at home on a small scale.

Goodluck wiht your project

kdhoban · Joined: 12 Sep 2008 Posts: 1

I have just started researching this and am going to go get clay to start in a few days.

I can hardly find info on how to do this at home and by hand anywhere. Everyone says to send them off to another place to get done, which I don't want to and can't do.

The silicone way seems to be very interesting, and I think that would be fun to play around with.

But I would still like it if I could find a way to do vinyl or something like vinyl as well. I read that you can do it at home and it will be a solid figure, unlike the rotocaster, which makes it hollow in the center. But nobody mentions HOW to do that.

Anyone else have more ideas?

(im from the US by the way lol)

maraf · Joined: 15 Mar 2010 Posts: 1

Hello,

I have been researching vinyl casting recently, and while I have yet to try it, I've found what seems to be a much safer approach than using anti-freeze.

This company: http://www.reynoldsam.com/index.php?cPath=5_1120_1209&catdepth=1 makes a 2 part liquid vinyl solution. You mix the two parts together and within 4-5 minutes the mixture hardens into vinyl. Sure beats melting coke bottles! Also, since it isn't hot, you can pour it right into a typical silicon mold.

Most vinyl toys/ sculptures are made using a process called roto-casting. This method rotates the mold so that the liquid plastic coats the inside of the mold, leaving the inside hollow. This also keeps prices down, letting you use less vinyl.

Big companies use machines that do this, but as mentioned in a previous post, you can rotate it by hand as well.

Here is a video demo of how the whole process can be done at home (using the "smooth cast" vinyl products). Haha, no I'm not trying to promote the company...they just seem to be the only ones making a product like this! Good luck everyone!

http://www.vinylpulse.com/2009/09/the-how-tos-to-rotocast-the-lil-g-by-jasin-dollin.html