thats for that! if you can find the japanese company, that would be killer also!
my way is (so far) as follows:
1: shape a piece of foam to the shape you would want you final product to be, if not a little bit smaller, maybe 1mm.
2: one layer of glass over the whole plug, sand it down a bit.
3: bondo the damn thing, grind it out relentlessly, get everything as flat as you can, make sure there are NO negative curves.
4: bondo again, filling the pits and making everything flush.
5: hotcoat the whole thing, like a gloss coat on a board.
6: open it up with 320, polish it out (i didnt polish mine because i get fed up with the damn thing, seeing as how i was going to destroy it anyways).
7: cover the polished part in partall (PVA), make sure there are no dry areas at all, let it dry and do a second coat for fun and reassurance.
8: hotcoat the thing with lam resin a few times to build thickness (i used UV, so this was a sinch).
9: lay up a bunch of glass, in pieces, squares, use 10oz, 4 oz, 3/4oz mat, whatever you want, just make sure there are no air bubbles.
10: keep laying stuff up. If you plan to use the mold alot of times, try to get the thickness up to almost 1/4"…thats a bigtime mold, production style.
11: now…remember that thing youve been putting all thie time and energy into, all you hours of sweating?..cut it in half.
12: once youve cut your beloved into two pieces, you can soak the seam where the partall separates the layers, just use a squeaze bottle or something, you cant see the partall though.
13: use anything you can to begin to pry the sides apart, i used a screwdriver and twisted it, then while twisted, inject more water to reach further, keep going around the whole side, all the while youll be absolutley DESTROYING your plug, try to be gentle with the mold side though :).
14: i drill holes in the bottom of the mold/plug bundle at this point, and inject water form the bottom, this will help separate all around your part.
15: Then i used locking pliers to grab enough of the wall of the plug to begin pulling it out…work around the edges, and then oneday, when youve worked realy hard and are about to throw it…the part will slide out like it was buttered the whole time…WHAT???
16: at this point you can wetsand the inside of your mold if you want, take off any pits or things youll find, but try not to touch it if you dont have to.
MAKING THE PART: (these steps go for both sides of your mold, and your making two matching parts)
17: now you can tape up your holes from the bottom, and paint PVA into your mold, let it flow out, and let it dry completley.
18: do a nice even hotcoat of lam resin inside your mold, this is the outside coating of your finished part, if you plan on sanding you finished housing much, youll want to do a nice thick hotcoat, or two.
19: start laying up your glass over that, this is your strength. ive heard of one guy in HI making them completley out of mat, like boat fabric…but i dont like that because mat isnt particularly strong, it builds thickness well, but we here at sways know how to make something strong w/out thickness.
this is where i am at, i have one side of my part layed up, my layup is as follows:
first, a layer of carbon all the way around, then 10oz backing that up, possibly some aircore patches, then more glass over that, the aircore is the same as people are putting in fins…i use a lower weight aircore though. this will add strength but not weight really, ill back that up with some mat, and try to smooth it out so there are no gnarls near my camera.
okay…ill take a break now on this one, ill follow up when i get to those stages…but in brief, the lense will be plexiglass with numerous holes drilled and countersunk. the flange of the part are thickened up whien the pary is layed up in the mold, just use exta glass on that point, make them SOLID.
ill use a dremel around the flanges to create a groove for the o-rings, i may double up on those for security :).
ill use plexiglass on the back of the housing also, so the camera will slip in from the back. the same o-ring and flange setup will be used on this side also.
for a button, im still stuck, but i have a few ideas floating, we’ll see what happens.
at this point, i will put it in the bathtub…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand hopefully, i will end up not throwing it into something…with all this work, it should…work.
-Ryan
the plug after my work on it to get the sides out:
the outsides of my plug halves after taking them out:
Carbon layed up: