Week 11: Composites

Hair Bowls

I shed a lot of hair every day. It's a wonder I have any left on my head. I've always wanted to be able to do something with all the hair that falls out of my head, so when Neil introduced the concept of fiber matrix and binding material, I decided to try to make a project with my hair fibers.
I used my rubber mold from Week 9: Molding & Casting

I collected hair for about a week and kept the longer ones.
I also decided to use some hemp, which was around the shop:

So I set up a normal bowl of my hair and a leaf bowl of the hemp:

using, as you can see, Smooth Cast 326, for a clear and relatively quick set.

I set up the vacuum bag and air suction:

I wanted to use only a very small amount of the plastic, so that it would not be hair encased in plastic but solidified hair:

so I tried to squeeze out as much of the plastic as possible.

Then I laid the release plastic layer over it, then the absorptive felt layer, and put everything in the vacuum bag:

I let this cook for an hour under the fume hood.

Sadly, it did not release well from the mold:

and my stupid hair bowl took out chunks from the rubber mold:

I should try this with hydrostone.