Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Making an Arduino power supply cable look wooden

Gluing wooden casings onto plugs Wooden power unit for Arduino head
With nice wooden plugs an ugly black plastic lead is not really what anyone wants!

The black lead on the left was revamped into the lead on the right by sawdust coating it using latex as a flexible bonding agent.

Latex and sawdust forms a composite material which is much physically robust than either on their own. The latex provides flexibility and the dust gives bulk and resilience.


Pouring latex
Liquid latex from an art supply shop was used, without any thickener adding. It uses ammonia as a suspension fluid which does smell rather strongly. Use in a ventilated space!







Dipping cable in latex
Latex was poured into a shallow container









Sieving sawdust
Sawdust was sifted to get a fine powder.









Making a wood-effect power cable
The sawdust was dusted over the wet latex.









Wood-effect power lead
This was left to dry, then the process was repeated.












Animatronic head reading lamp
Eventually after three coats it ended up looking rather tasty and root-like!












Animatronic head reading lamp
A close-up of the joint with the mains plug.









Animatronic head reading lamp
Here is the head complete with swanky new cable.







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