Oval Flora Mould

 

Fly Pressing Plastic

Figure 1 - Mbeje. A (2020) Oval Flora Pattern. Gilding Mould 

This was my first experimentation of using the fly pressing technique in jewellery, I was using a painted mould to fly press the plastic in figure 1. My explanation of using the mould on plastic was not easy because of the simple pattern design. I wanted to learn how to fly press and what are the challenges of using plastic not metal, but my design mould would have been better if I made it's smaller and detailed from the inside mould.

Figure 2 -  Mbeje. A (2020). Oval Flora Pattern. Plastic HDPE (coca-cola cups) 

Using gilding metal for fly pressing plastic, it's not a problem if you do its right, the temperature remains constant until the plastic cools off.

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.