{"id":975,"date":"2025-01-26T22:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T21:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/?p=975"},"modified":"2025-01-26T22:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T21:39:14","slug":"tulle-gypsum-part-2-first-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/?p=975","title":{"rendered":"Tulle-gypsum part 2: first tests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>All the materials arrived so I started some tests. I did some 10&#215;10 cm test pieces, as well as wrapping a glass bottle. Some early thoughts while the test pieces aren&#8217;t even fully hardened yet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This shit is messy! No way will I be able to do 5 gram test pieces; at least that much material is stuck to my hands every time I put it on the tulle fabric<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I made some calculations errors. 50 grams of gypsum gets me about 3 pieces of double layer 10&#215;10 cm, not one. This is good. If I want more texture, of course I could use more<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It sets quite slowly, I was still able to put some texture into it about 1\u00bdh after mixing. I think even for larger pieces I can just mix a single batch without having to worry too much about the setting time<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I think my fabric is not ideal. The tulle is a tad too &#8220;open&#8221;, it doesn&#8217;t absorb the gypsum material as nicely as the gossamer used by the guy in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QtV_84yz2qY\">this<\/a> video. Still, that doesn&#8217;t seem to matter so much &#8211; it spreads out easily after applying the layer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m not sure yet how much top layer I will need. The texture of the tulle fabric comes through in spots where I don&#8217;t have much material on it, I don&#8217;t know how bad that would look when it&#8217;s set. Perhaps it&#8217;s fine after wet brushing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Colour:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The gypsum plaster material is not pure white, it&#8217;s actually a nice beige even if I don&#8217;t add pigment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The brown is great. Mixed at 4% it gives a warm light brown colour, at 8% it&#8217;s not much darker though<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The black pigment is not as powerful as I had hoped. Mixed at 4% it gives a light cold-ish grey. Also, a little granular &#8211; doesn&#8217;t mix as easily as the brown<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is possible to put a pigmented layer directly onto an unpigmented one, and unless the first layer was very thick it won&#8217;t mix through much. This saves some pigment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I haven&#8217;t tried painting yet. With how the pigments are working, I think I should aim for a nice light brown base colour, wet brushing with a dark colour and perhaps some dry brushed highlights<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thinking of how to use this material for our festival decorations:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The original idea is to make trees. Depending on how strong it hardens, I think it will work!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Perhaps we can also use it to make 2D mascots, which we currently saw out of thin plywood. This material is easier to do indoors (no loud\/dusty sawing)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3D mascots and objects other than trees could be possible too!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If it&#8217;s strong enough with thin layers that still let through light &#8211; perhaps make a really cool lamp shade?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Testing colour\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Getting the main colour right: testing a few different percentages of brown, as well as mixing in some black with the brown<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Getting some brushes<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Trying some diy dark paint\/paste out of the black pigment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wet brushing dark (shadows)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dry brushing light (highlights), e.g. with corn starch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Perhaps adding some green flocking powder or some other way to simulate moss<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For fun: trying my blue and red pigment powders<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Testing texture\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>How thick should the second layer be?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wet on wet, or second layer onto dried first layer?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Different techniques of applying bark texture<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Testing construction \/ backing\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Different backing materials (paper towel, paper, cardboard, plastic..): how strong is it?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Trying 3D shapes: how strong is it?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Vaseline to go backing-less?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Making &#8220;hinges&#8221; for folding tree design<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>To be continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All the materials arrived so I started some tests. I did some 10&#215;10 cm test pieces, as well as wrapping a glass bottle. Some early thoughts while the test pieces aren&#8217;t even fully hardened yet: Next up: To be continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composites","category-fibre-composites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invar.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}