Plastic Butterfly

HDPE and ABS Fly Pressing

Figure 1 - Mbeje A. (2020). Geometric Butterfly Pendant (Mould), Gilding Metal

The casted mould didn't come out accurately as seen in Figure 1, this was caused by the printing structure of the ABS Plastic. The Geometric Butterfly mould was casted with gilding metal, which created problems for me when I was fly pressing the plastic. The mould lost shape from inside to due shrinkage and porosity.    

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Figure 2 - Mbeje A. (2020). Geometric Butterfly. ABS Plastic (left-side) and HDPE (right-side). 

My aim was to achieve the Geometric Butterfly design prototype by using different type of plastics material to fly press in order to achieve a smooth shiny surface from the mould.  I was able to achieve this finish by using the ABS plastic as seen in Figure 2 on the left side. I was struggling to achieve this from the HDPE plastic as seen on the right side in Figure 2. The plastic surface had a matte finish after being fly pressed, but this was caused by the porosity inside the mould which wasn't affecting the ABS plastic.