Ok, just got back after a two-week vacation with some modding attached.
My current idea is to build a skull-shaped case (sort of) in clear acrylic.
The first solution was to cast it in clear plastic, which turned out to be quite difficult since home-cast plastic always contain bubbles (I need a vacuum mould to handle that).
Then I saw a comment on the "tips and tricks with acrylic..." thread from tybrenis (are you still around?). The content was basically that you can shape acrylic to any form using a hot air gun and a wet cloth (and something to press against).
Trying this proved to be difficult though and hence my problem: the acrylic piece i use is 6mm thick and it took hours to get it warm enough to bend, but only slightly. That is, after heating the piece for approx. 1.5h i managed to bend the acrylic about 2mm. But when I apply pressure, using the wet cloth, the plastic cools and hardens, meaning another 1.5h of heating before I can start bending again.
Now my questions:
Should heating take this long (ie hours)?
Is the acrylic too thick (should I use a different thickness)?
Is there a more efficient way of doing this?
I'm moving this week, so there's not going to be much modding for me, but the next plan, if this isn't going to work, is to use something different (glue, or silicon) to do the case in and then reinforce it afterwards.
-.erik