You Might Ask Yourself Options

[Bitter Monk]

What's Sam been up to these days?

Well Sam's on Christmas Vacation. Which was all fine and good for like the first couple of days. Then I got bored. Really, really bored.

So I went to the gun store and that was fun. After I left the gun store I felt a significant increase in my testosterone levels so I went to the hobby store to even myself out.

Came back with some goodies.



Goodies are on the left. I already had the cat, the old baking pan, and the Elkins Creek cast.

I wonder what's in the purple boxes.



Why it's clay. Not good old Georgia red clay though. I hear it's a felony to collect that stuff.

I wonder what I could do with a big old amorphous chunk of non-Georgia red clay?



That was easy enough.

[Bitter Monk]

Nothing like a rough ass foot to ruin your day. Better smooth it out a bit.



Gloves are good. Would hate to accidentally impart some dermal ridges.

Better smooth it out a little more just to be safe. After all the kit did come with a sponge. Would hate for it to feel left out.



Pretty good looking foot if I do say so myself.



Still has some surface texture but that will be dealt with later.

[Bitter Monk]

Better provide some proper documentation shots for size reference and what not.



You know how those scientifical types are.



I think I was channeling Paul Freeman when I shaped the big toe.



And one more just for posterity.



I wonder where all this could end up leading to?

[Tube]

Good work! Like ping-pong or shooting free-throws, sculpting a 3D model like that is tougher than it looks. Bitter Monk looks to be either a "natural", or has had some artistic training in the past.

While The Monk appears to be content creating male replicants, I went the other route and created female replicants.



The big crack you see down the center is a result of setting the project aside in my basement for several years, and letting it dry out. On the top edge of the crater you see a line of yellow material about 9cm long; that's dried two-part urethane.

The big depressions you see on the sides of the "track" are simply thumb prints used to help define the lateral margins of the crater.

Unlike Georgia, Washington State simply doesn't have nice red clay lying around everywhere. Since Seattle is snowed in right now, I have the time to share with you a funny story of how I got the clay I used for this test.

You would think I could just "zip on down" to Seattle Pottery Supply and buy a couple of 20 pound blocks of the bargain basement clay, but that's not what happened.

I was worried that the cops might have a "tail" on me and my 1977 Ford F-250 as I was regularly commuting to my combination meth lab - counterfeiting operation. So I started taking taxi cabs. One day I noticed that in addition to the cell phone the driver kept to his ear the whole ride, he had some sort of electronic switch on the front seat. It was about 3 inches long and had a red button at the end. In fact, I saw a bunch of Radio Shack packages that looked like radio controlled cars or airplanes, a soldering iron, some solder, rolls of "bell" wire, and a bunch of batteries.

I figured this guy might be my kinda guy, so I strike up a conversation. It was hard to understand him, as he had a thick accent, possibly Persian, and he also wouldn't stop talking on his cell phone. Was he talking to me, or his buddy al-Ibrahami?

I come to find out that the trunk of his taxi is full of RDX plastic explosive! Being plastic and all, I figure it might be a good material to use to make my "female" track mold. But he wanted big bucks for his stuff, so I decided to barter. Luckily, I just happened to have with me the blueprints for the Seattle Space Needle. When I mentioned "blueprints" and "Space Needle" his ears perked up, although they were hard to see that through his thick turban.

We pull behind the AM-PM mini-mart at 23rd and Cherry and make the deal. Damn, he had enough C4 and RDX in there to take out Grand Coulee Dam! I forked over the plans, he forked over a big chunk of the plastic stuff.

I got to my meth lab safely, and the dude drove away. Little did he know that I had Rickrolled him, that he didn't get Space Needle blueprints after all; I had cleverly substituted the wiring diagram for a 1975 Ford Pinto! HA HA, what a dumbass!!! Our Sacred Seattle Monument was safe...

I anxiously opened my wrapped-in-plastic 20 pound block of plastic explosive. But my blood ran cold, as I failed to detect any pungent amine aroma. My nose is like a dog's!

Dammit, he Rickrolled me too, substituting for RDX a 20 pound block of clay from Seattle Pottery Supply. Lousy terrorist bastard!

[Bitter Monk]

I stopped reading at the part where you mentioned seeing a big crack. No thank you.

And for the record my male model will eventually produce female offspring. Sounds crazy I know but bear with me.

[JohnWS]

Multiple repeatable females from a more durable & reusable male?

[Bitter Monk]

Well there will only be one female made from this male, but she will be able to produce effectively unlimited males, who in turn can produce effectively unlimited females of a different sort.

We're still talking about feet right?

[Tube]

And for the record my male model will eventually produce female offspring. Sounds crazy I know but bear with me.

It won't be the first time:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5302756

[JohnWS]

We're still talking about feet right?

Yes. My post earlier skipped the intermediate steps, but I figure where you are going. My repeatable females are your unlimited females of a different sort. I feel stupid typing in code .

[Tube]

I think Bitter Monk is simply talking in code, and is advocating gay marriage and human cloning.

It's kind of like Gilligan's Island:

http://www.orgoneresearch.com/homosexual_a..._of_gilliga.htm

[Susan]

OMG, you guys are entertaining!!!!

Thanks for making me laugh while I'm snowed in. Don't be surprised if you don't get put on some "list" for being a hoaxer now that you're faking foot casts... I'm sure you're breaking several laws in your delinquency................

[Teresa]

So that's what happened to my green bic lighter.

[Bitter Monk]

The saga continues.... now in blog form!

[Tube]

Congratulations! By noting the shrinkage of the clay, you have empirically discovered that clays are often themselves effective desiccants:

http://www.uline.com/BL_1001/Kraft-Bag-Clay-Desiccants

And as they lose water, wet clays shrink.

Being that my university education was in pharmacy, the whole emphasis was on organic chemistry. But I had remembered that kaolin, a type of clay, had been used medicinally for just this reason. This is where the name "Kaopectate" originally came from, but the formulation has changed over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaopectate

Thus one of my first intuitions on what to study as far as substrates that would "wick" or desiccate water from a plaster slurry was clay.

So if you use your butane lighter to insert a flame into a stream of Krylon aerosol spray, what happens? Can you take pictures?

[Bitter Monk]

So if you use your butane lighter to insert a flame into a stream of Krylon aerosol spray, what happens?

Awesomeness ensues. Unfortunately the wife took both away from me after the first time so now I'm rubbing two sticks together just to light my cigarettes.

[Stacy Flowers]

[Susan]

Poor Sam, had all his fun taken away...............

[Nightwing]

I can't wait to see where this leads.

[Bitter Monk]

I'm supposed to be going somewhere with this?

Damnit. Now I feel pressured.

[Bitter Monk]

It's getting moldy.