There is a new type of craft toy where you make miniature items out of plastic and sometimes resin. Most of these are food based – and KLS has made a few – but recently one company brought out this Lord Of The Rings version. Inside the blind-packed plastic sphere is a kit to ‘forge’ a weapon from the Lord Of The Rings films.
That’s the contents, which include a few props and the tools and material to make the sword itself. You can see it comes with two hilts, which may be a hint the process isn’t trivial.
The blade is created by putting resin into a silicone mold. First you need to put a very fine opalescent powder in, and the process is a little slapdash. What’s the powder for? We don’t know, but our guess is to either help the blade not stick to the mold, or to give it a metallic texture since the resin is plastic?
The liquid resin comes in a tiny bottle and the kit includes this long nozzle to inject it into the mold.
This step was difficult since the mold is opaque and the resin is clear so it’s difficult to see how well it’s filling the mold, and whether air bubbles have been avoided. We did our best until it slightly overfilled.
Then you put a hilt on top and let it harden in light. The kit says 60 minutes is all that is needed but from experience – a near-failed model jelly kit – KLS decided to leave it for a day.
To be extra sure we put it under a UV lamp overnight!
The next day the blade slid out of the mold easily, but had an air bubble. Kristin did her best to fill it and we let it dry another day!
And after the second drying stage here it is! A tiny toothpick sized legendary blade with a missing tip 🙂
The blade bonded to the hilt well and took the detail of the mold nicely. It was a bit sticky so the final step was to rub it with some alcohol. While imperfect, I’d say overall it was a fair effort.
We attempted to make another one with the remaining material, but it was a fail and no photos were taken.
For an intro into resin molding I think these kits are pretty great, but they’re also messy and difficult and I can’t see the intended audience (children) having much success with them. It was fun for us though!