After testing the Flat-Pack Camera Arm, I was pretty happy with the results. Happy, except for one detail: the joint at the base of the arm would creep down over time. This wasn’t a problem while taking shots of projects at the bench, given how often I’d have to reposition it. The big pain was trying to capture time lapses. The creep was just too noticeable, and it would never stay in place long enough to keep the action of a day’s work in frame.
So, I set out to make some locking plates for the arm, and I think people can find some interesting applications for the process I came up with. The broad strokes of the method are that you design the part you’d like to end up with in CAD, design a floor under your part with walls around it (I call this a bathtub), print the bathtub mold you designed, cast the mold using 2-part silicone (making sure it’s nice and level), and cast your final material into that mold. Once you’ve got the knack of replicating parts using 1-part molds, you can get fancier: adding vent holes for letting air escape or labels for your parts or building multiple parts for your molds for even more precise geometry.