Take two, partial silicone tail

[Marinus Mortimer]

thats awesome Lili keep it up that flike turned oit great. What monofin will u be using?

[MermaidClaudy]

OMG I am soon flowing that thread!! It looks amazing!!!

[Lili]

Thanks guys ! I got to finish both sides last night, almost used up all my pigment, I left enough to cover the sides of the fluke once I seal it, I'm not using a monofin for this tail, Merman Marinus, I went out and bought more silicone to create my dorsal fin, seeing as I totally wrecked my molds for those, (I made two little fins out of polymer clay and hardened it, poured plaster on it, came out great, but then I sat on it and broke it .__.) So I'll just take the fins and press them into some clay and then pour silicone inside that, I think that works out better too because that way I can get one continuous strand instead of casting a million fins and siliconing them together...hooray for happy accidents!

[Lili]

Some mold pictures of the soon to be dorsal fin

[Marinus Mortimer]

Great progress, no monofin? How do you expect to move forward? Or is this tail just for sitting and floating around in the shallows?

[Lili]

Hmm maybe I should attach a lexan monofin...I'll get some lexan tomorrow, I was debating on this for the longest time
I also cannot decide what amount of sil poxy I need, I basically need to cover the top of the fluke and some neoprene around it, should I get the .5 oz tube or more?

[Marinus Mortimer]

I've never worked with silepoxy before but my guess is that more is better than less...

[Lili]

Yeah I ordered the 3 oz tube, the .5 oz tube seems to be somewhat of a rip off because you get significantly less product and you end up paying a few dollars less for it, I also realized I had no way of sealing the fluke after I posted yesterday, so there's another reason to get more.

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[Lili]

Ugh amazon isn't accepting my payment method so now my order has been delayed, I guess I have more time to work on the dorsal now

Okay, I take that back, it came in the mail just now

[geffy]

great! very nice!

[Lili]

so I am letting the sil poxy cure, while that's happening, I'm also waiting for my 5th batch of dorsal fins to cure
Sil poxy smells just as bad as silicone caulking

Update: whoo it worked, the fluke is connected to the body, now all I need to do is attach scales and dorsal, yaaay

[Lili]

[Lili]

Alright so I began scaling the tail, eek I'm so close
I had to take a break because the fumes are starting to give me a headache, also, I know some of them are painted, that's only because I used some of the scales for a Halloween makeup look one year, the black ones are the ones I tested my sealant on, I'm doing the back first, I cannot wait to paint it, I'm so excited

[Marinus Mortimer]

OMG's ur so close sistta im super exited, did u ever bluid the lexan fin or u left it just silicone? A re those scales made of plastic? Great work so far im super proud, yasss more deep water mers on the rise...

[Marinus Mortimer]

If they are plastic scales you should grind down the edges to add depth like this.

[Lili]

Oh yes those are plastic scales, I did make a lexan sheet, this time I went to my neighbor and he had a jigsaw, oh wow that's a neat idea I didn't think about grinding them down like that, thanks!

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[Marinus Mortimer]

No problem, glad i could help!
Great that you got the fin done ✔

P.S.: are u doing multiple layers of scales to add strenght, it might make the tail less flrxible but thats what they did for the H2O tails.

[Lili]

I began attaching the dorsal, it's not fully painted yet as you can see, it has some basic color on it
Nor is it trimmed or connected into one long piece
On a side note, I ran out of scales, but the good thing is that I can reuse some of these babies from work
The plastic on them is very soft so it shouldn't damage my hands as much as other bottles did, currently, there are about a dozen different plastics on this tail, different thickness, each scale is a different size, I know that my family doesn't separate plastic from paper, which is a waste, so I am going to cover my tail in all the plastic they would have been wasting.

[MermaidClaudy]

exiting!!!!

[GulfMerman101]

Hi Lili, I just saw this thread right now, and I'm speechless and so excited to see the final finish of the tail! I too am planning to make an extended tail like from the films, but I am just waiting to gain alil more money to buy the supplies.