iSculpt.org

Okay, I know what I said in my last post, but the contracts don't actually get signed until tomorrow, so while I'm working this weekend, I'm not killing myself yet and I had time for a little project.

Anyway, Ming-Hua, who is a fine miniature sculptor and an engineer to boot, as well one of the moderators of the great 1ListSculpting Yahoo! group. Ming-Hua is always posting pictures of ingenious devices, gadgets, and tools he's built to make his life easier, and he recently posted some pictures of a portable putty oven he designed and built.I'm hoping to buy at least one, and more likely two from him if he decides to sell them, because I generally sculpt large size at home and primarily only sculpt miniatures when I travel. Since I'm going to start traveling again really soon, this little oven would be a gem to have.

In case you don't know what a putty oven, it's just a small container (often something as simple as a coffee can) and a heat source (often a low-wattage light bulb) where you can put your miniature to cure faster. The traditional coffee-can and light bulb getup works great, but it's less than ideal to bring with you when you travel.

It's unclear yet if I'm going to be able to buy one of these magic little ovens from Ming-Hua, so I thought I'd see if I could do something similar to tide me over. My results were surprisingly good given that I know jack about electrical or mechanical engineering, though the temperature is a little lower than I'd like, clocking in at about 100°F (38°C). I'm still interested in buying Ming-Hua's, but this will work for me in the meantime. Anyway, here's what I did.

For some strange reason, we had laying around the house, a small heating pad designed to keep a hermit crab or lizard's tank warm. It's a heating element contained inside of a plastic laminate that you can get at a pet store:

I then went to Michael's and bought a small lunch box for about $6:

I drilled a hole in the side large enough for the plug to fit through, then taped the heating element into the box. I put it in "upside down" so that the heat would radiate into the box instead of into the metal. I don't have a picture of it, but I later secured the heating element a little away from the wall and put some insulating styrofoam behind it in order to keep heat from radiating out through the metal.

A little FastSteel putty closed the hole in the box.

I then drilled a hole in the top and inserted a meat thermometer into the hole:

and voilà! Putty oven is complete:

It's nowhere near as good as Ming-Hua's: It can't run on batteries, it doesn't get quite as hot as I'd like, and the overall construction is sloppier but, hey, it's better than nothing.