Casting a chocolate bunny straight into sand sounds simple, and that is exactly where this build starts. The early attempts failed, either because the sand stuck to the chocolate or because the fine surface texture was lost, so the maker had to rethink the whole approach to get a clean aluminum copy of a commercial bunny.
The solution was to stop pressing the chocolate into the sand and make proper patterns instead. Two-part pink silicone was mixed in a plastic cup, degassed in a vacuum chamber, then poured around the bunny inside cardboard forms. That flexible mold produced plaster pattern replicas, and one of those was molded in a wooden sand casting flask. The fifth attempt, pouring the silicone into a vertical mold box, gave a bubble-free plaster pattern, and that run finally succeeded.
There are plenty of small touches worth noting. While pouring the molten aluminum from the crucible, the maker tapped the flask to dislodge gas bubbles. The cast bunny was then trimmed and polished on a buffing wheel mounted to an 8-inch bench grinder, with blue tape used to center the wheel on the arbor and brown buffing compound for the finish. The result keeps the textured details of the chocolate original, which is the whole point of the exercise.
The honest part is that it took five documented attempts, and the causes of each defect are explained along the way, so nothing is glossed over. As a celebration, three aluminum bunnies are being given away, with one winner also receiving a lost-PLA casting kit. Winners are randomly selected and announced on Easter Monday, April 5th, 2021, and the giveaway is open only to US residents aged 18 or older, with no purchase necessary.
Project by Ten Tries. Watch it on their YouTube channel: