Last year she asked for a dragon scale...

December 17, 2011 4:06 AM

My daughter has asked Santa for a "rubber pound coin" for Christmas, and with the delightful phrase of "Santa can get anything" we can't find anything in the UK. I'm open to suggesstions, with the caveat I'm a bit useless at arts and crafts,

(and as to the headline - we manged to get a pinball machine restorer to fashion a dragon scale out of titanium...)

posted by ewan to shopping (7 answers total)

Silicon mold making! Making a replica coin shouldn't be too difficult. Good luck!
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:46 AM on December 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

You can get rubber erasers in the form of UK banknotes, if that's any help. You can get of course get plastic money including pound coins, but it isn't rubber.
posted by Segundus at 4:52 AM on December 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

You could possibly ask this bloke.
posted by Segundus at 5:07 AM on December 17, 2011

It's probably pretty expensive, but you could always look into 3D printing services (one example). Scaling up a coin ought to be dead simple for them.

Also, you could buy some trousers. For your kid. ;-)
posted by dhartung at 12:14 PM on December 17, 2011

At a quick guess, which probably underestimates the first step*, try making a mould using a greased pound coin and some plaster of paris, mould it using something like sugru or fimo (which you'll find in shops), then spray with gold paint.

* make separate moulds for each side, then make using fimo, then sand down each half and join with superglue, then spraypaint.
posted by dowcrag at 1:35 PM on December 17, 2011

You could try looking for a chocolate or soap making mould in the shape of a pound coin - I tried and the best I could find is this - just a coin, not a pound coin. You could try a cooking speciality shop.

If you can't find one, you might have to resort to making your own mould as the others have suggested. I would suggest you take a slab of fimo/clay (ideally one that you can bake in the oven, available from local craft shop or Amazon. Cut in half. Put cling wrap over one half, then coin (push down until it's almost level with the clay), then another layer of cling wrap, then second half of clay. Press down. Peal apart. Bake. Now you have your mould.

For the coin itself, you could use either the contents of this kit, or make your own recipe following this recipe. I would suggest spraying the mould with a thin layer of cooking oil, or possibly lining the mould with cling wrap again so that the coin doesn't stick. Pour 'rubber' into the bottom (deeper) of the two halves of the mould, place the second half (lid) on and press. Some of the 'rubber' will probably need to be trimmed off when the compound has dried.

***note: this is all theoretical - I can't say I've ever made a rubber pound coin before - so results not guaranteed***
posted by brambory at 2:51 AM on December 18, 2011

Or, another possibility - in this photo, there seems to be a pound coin eraser. You could contact the owner of the website to see if she's selling them.
posted by brambory at 3:02 AM on December 18, 2011