Lens making

I started by making a mould to create a drop lens by gluing together a frame made of pinched clay as well as a piece of blown hot plastic with hot melt glue. However, I found that since the plastic sheet was not flat, it was easy to glue it directly with small gaps and the drip glue would leak out. And there were a lot of air bubbles when I first tried glue dripping due to my inexperience.

Considering that the less regular shape of the hand pinched clay frames would also result in gaps in the mould, I cut some more wood frames with a cnc for the test. this time I improved the method a bit by cutting heated pieces of plastic into the shape of lenses, tucking them into the wood frames, and sealing them by squeezing a generous amount of hotmelt adhesive around the bottom edges of the plastic pieces, and then ripping off the hotmelt adhesive as I was removing them from the moulds.

I also didn't pay much attention to defoaming at this stage as I wanted to create an underwater-like effect. However, when observed after the drip was fully dry, too many air bubbles would cause the lens to be less transparent and not look very good when looking through it.

I also tried adding Spirulina powder around the lens, which had an aquatic plant smell but was not particularly visually appealing so I eventually discarded it.

On the third attempt, I defoamed by heating the A-gel, so the clarity of the lens was much improved, almost, no bubbles.