MAKE | DIY Vampire Fangs – Weekend Projects Podcast

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By Bre Pettis
Posted 2007/10/19 @ 6:38 am
Category General, Home

Have you ever wanted to suck the blood out of an innocent’s neck? If so, then this is the project for you! Eric Skiff came over to help me make vampire fangs! Eric has made these for years using dental acrylic, but recently figured out that acrylic for nails is basically the same material. The great thing about this project is that you’ll learn how to mold three different types of materials! We’re going to make a negative mold of your teeth out of alginate, a positive mold out of your teeth out of plastic, and then the fangs are made out of a two part acrylic that you’d use to make fake fingernails!

In the Maker Shed

18 Responses to DIY Vampire Fangs – Weekend Projects Podcast

otherguy on October 19th, 2007 at 1:13 pm said:

Would any local retailers carry the alginate and 2 part plastic?

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rolandblais on October 19th, 2007 at 1:50 pm said:

From the vid, it looks like the 2-part plastic is the trial size of smooth-on 300. http://www.smooth-on.com/liqplas.htm

Smooth-On has a list of distributors here:
http://www.smooth-on.com/distportal.htm

Good luck. And guys, thanks for posting this, your video is going to make my daughter very, very happy. She wanted fangs for her costume, but none so far have fit properly. We will definitely be making these!

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IronKate on October 19th, 2007 at 3:35 pm said:

Great Podcast! A couple of caveats, though: some teeth have small, natural undercut shaped depressions in them. I’ve heard horror stories of these kind of homebrew fangs snapping into these depressions and being impossible to remove without the help of a dentist – embarrasing! I’ve also heard that making any kind of dental prosthetic without a dentistry license is illegal in some places.

These could be urban fang myths, though – I’ve never actually done this.

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Pjotor on October 20th, 2007 at 6:41 am said:

You can do the same thing with Sculpey, or similar clays – comes in a lot of colors and is really easy to work with.
I made a bunch of these back in the days.

Stick a bit of Sculpey on the teeth.
The more you work the clay the softer it get, and you don’t want them to collapse in the oven. Make a few more than you need, just to be on the safe side if the fitting gets busted after they set.
Bake them and carved out the shape. No need to make molds or use smelly chemicals.
Get a 4-grade manicure file and you’ll polish them baby’s up with a mirror finish.

With a little practice you can learn to put them on with you tongue and keep them in your mouth for extra effect. Gives the perfect illusion of “retractable” fangs.

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tim1986 on October 20th, 2007 at 8:25 pm said:

I bought the Nail Acrylic at Walgreen’s(drug store) for a grand total of $6.45. The Nail Acrylic I bought is made by “Kiss” and it is a “Acrylic Fill Kit.” It comes with .5 Fluid OZ of Acrylic Liquid and 7.5 Grams of the Acrylic Powder. I bought the clear kind, I hope that is right!

I already had casting resin from good old TAP Plastics and Insta-Mold(Alginate) from Michaels Art supply store.

I haven’t made the teeth yet, but I want to make one big fang to go over my two front teeth.
-Tim

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mweisman123 on October 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am said:

One thing I don’t remember them mentioning in the podcast, mix the alginate in a disposable vessel. I did it with Pyrex and it was a huge pain to scrape it all off.

Also, the nail acrylic really does smell pretty bad. I tried to do the last step in my kitchen, and it turned out to smell much worse when mixing than it does in the bottle. My roommate was pretty pissed and we had to open the doors and windows and turn on fans for a couple hours to get the smell out.

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SeanG on October 21st, 2007 at 3:07 pm said:

Question: Instead of the Acrylic mix, would it be possible to use ShapeLock or Friendly Plastic?

ShapeLock is a re-usable low-temp thermoplastic that you can mold like putty. If you mess up… just re-heat it in hot water and try again. The supply of ShapeLock I have claims to be totally non-toxic and, indeed, has no plastic smell at all. But these things are going in your mouth… so I’d expect you’d want it to be REALLY non-toxic.

Thoughts?

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SomniumDS on October 22nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm said:

oh come on!! i was going to make this for the DIY Halloween contest… i was going to do it with friendly plastic though… doesn’t smell and if you want you can do it in your own mouth… sigh… oh well… guess i’ll find somethin else to do…

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jagh on October 23rd, 2007 at 9:09 pm said:

this is cool
one question though.
where would i get alginate from?

thanks,
jagh

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gunterhausfrau on October 25th, 2007 at 4:29 pm said:

I’ve done the sculpy version before, worked well. I was able to eat and drink (within limits). I did make 2-3 sets and found that one pair worked much better than the rest.

Not sure about putting sculpy in your mouth… may not be the best of things?

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tim1986 on October 25th, 2007 at 10:50 pm said:

I made them. I explained the project to my dentist and he gave me some alginate, but he is a family friend.

It was a fun project. One problem I ran into was when I poured the casting plastic onto the alginate the alginate started to bubble and shrink, but it worked out fine.
-Tim

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tim1986 on October 25th, 2007 at 11:20 pm said:

I posted photos to the Make Flickr Pool. http://www.flickr.com/photos/timballas/1753842951/

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jdh664 on October 27th, 2007 at 9:10 am said:

Michaels sells alginate for casting baby hands and feet. the “3D Gel” and “Precious Impressions” products will work.

The Precious Impressions Refill Pack has 1 cup of alginate (should be enough for 4 attempts) and some “heavy duty” plaster for the positive.

I got mine with a %-off coupon. So it was on the cheap too!

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Beowulf69 on November 12th, 2007 at 8:45 pm said:

Hi all,

i made the fangs exactly as per the instructions given and they turned out great except for one small detail, my fangs are clear, i can see my own teeth right through them. Am i missing something? is there a way that i can whiten the acrylic so its not transparent? Any help would be much appreciated.

Beowulf69

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Poh leanne on February 21st, 2008 at 1:36 am said:

What is alginate?

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Sarah on September 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 am said:

Hi there !

Is there someone can tell me what I need to do those fangs,
and where I can buy the stuff(for making the fang)???

thanx !

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- Diana on October 9th, 2009 at 4:10 am said:
  
  A long time ago, I used Friendly Plastic Pellets to make fangs like this. I just warmed up the pellets in water, pulled out a small blob and formed it directly on my tooth. Can be rewarmed and done again if you didn’t get it quite right.
  
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kate on November 13th, 2012 at 9:04 pm said:

Would it work to just mold the teeth onto my plastic retainer I got from my orthodontist?

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