You don’t have to pull a reverse Little Mermaid to become a citizen of the ocean – you can just make your own mermaid tail. Instructables user ehamm goes over the process of making one from latex and warns that it takes a lot of time and around $500. On the upside, it’s designed so that you can swim in it. You need to start with a monofin and cover it with neoprene. It’s a thick fabric, so keep that in mind before you put it under your sewing machine’s needle. The next step is the scales, and she opted to go the easy route by punching holes out of craft foam with a sharpened pipe and hammer. When the scales are ready, she prepped them for molding:
The next part is to build a wall around your scales for the molding process. I used 2×4’s that I screwed into my wooden base, and then covered the edges with clay.
Once that’s done, you can pour ultracal into that box and let it set overnight.
By the end of it, you’ll VERY CAREFULLY flip your mold over and then peel out all those stickie circles. On some of the photos you can see where the plaster got underneath these scales. In the end, it was alright for me because there was still a definite scale in the plaster..
I would suggest filling in the gaps with clay if your scales are peeling up.
For making the fluke:
Trace your monofin onto the board you’ll be sculpting on, and then make sure to follow those lines. Ideally the sculpt will be exact on those lines, but leave about 1/4″ to 1/2″ give. If you’re making this out of latex, it will shrink, so you want it to be a bit wider than the monofin.
This is only half of the fluke, you’ll make two identical pulls of this and then glue them together with the monofin sandwiched in between.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Select Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: PyCon AU 2024 Talks, New Raspberry Pi Gear Available and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
