Plastic Fusion Samples!

One thing that I`ve never tried throughout sixth form is a technique that most textile and fashion students use, it can be used with just about anything actually...

The main reason that I`ve never actually tried any plastic fusion work is that everytime I want to try it out, a fashion or textile student will be doing the same thing; plus, I`ve only ever seen fashion and textile students use this, they sew it into fabrics or just make a dress completely out of plastic. But it turns out that you can use plastic fusion in just about anything you want, but I never knew that cause I`m pretty simple minded and never actually bothered to ask what I could possibly use this for...

I`ve only used one technique to perform plastic fusion actually; So we use the heat press or the heat gun at my sixth form, the heat gun will just melt anything and the heat press has to be set too 150 degrees in order for anything to melt, but n both cases you will probably smell a lot of burning. I`ve used plastic wallets for my samples, I`ve cut the edges off and then neatly sandwiched what I want in-between the two remaining floppy pieces of thin plastic.  

When you pull the heat press down or start melting it with the heat gun, the heat melts the plastic around anything that has been sandwiched in-between those two pieces of plastic. So for my little samples, I used strings, papers, wax, inks and other little plasticy bits that could be sandwiched in.

I wouldn`t of expected wax and ink to work, but you couldn`t use ink without the wax. I used the heat press for my samples which meant that as soon as the metal plate came down it just started to instantly cook everything... Which meant that when it was pulled all of the way down and was locked into place I could hear the ink cooking underneath the metal plate and had to yank it back up straight away, it was bubbling, which indicates that I messed up somewhat. Also, because it had only been down for a few seconds before it began to bubble away none of the plastic had melted. So, if you just drop a few wax pellets in there, they melt just as quickly as the ink starts to cook, and then when you yank the heat press open the wax dries instantly which then sandwiches everything together just like the plastic should do. This happens in about 4-7 seconds of just having the heat press locked into place, and none of the ink falls out the sides of the plastic once it`s been taken out.
(BEWARE! You can still hear the ink and the wax cooking which means it sizzles quite loudly, if any teachers are nearby they will most probably think your cooking eggs or are breaking the press. If it gets too noticeable then lift the heat press quickly, otherwise the wax will start melting out of the sides and it will go EVERYWHERE!)

Another small problem with this is, don`t put quite chunky bits in, and don`t use loads of paper otherwise the plastic around it becomes lose and it`ll just open up again. Just make sure that you aren`t doing a huge block of solid material, otherwise the plastic just won`t fuse together around it and then you`ve ruined the fusion you wanted to make.

I do quite like these little samples, I do need to get some more little bits done so I can use it in some other mixed media pieces of work and hopefully cut pieces of the fusion out and create images with them... Basically just a collage with loads of different coloured Plastic fusion pieces!

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