That awesome clear USB drive project requires too much spare wood and clamping, and the end product is too nice. Isn’t there a faster, halfer-assed way to do it that yields worse results?

Yes! Here’s what you’ll need

• Castin’ Craft Clear Liquid Plastic Casting Resin (the first item on the page will do nicely, and it comes with catalyst - Michael’s should have it, too)
• Castin’ Craft catalyst for polymer resin
• A small clamp
• A bare USB drive (I had a spare 256mb SanDisk I cracked out of its case)
• Disposible plastic cups and a chopstick or popsicle stick for mixing
• Latex gloves while you’re working with the resin, just in case
• An empty plastic box that will fix your drive. Your savior: boxes of mints. Tic-Tacs work well, although I went with a Winterfresh box because it had a neat concavity.

Group shot:

Here’s what you do:

1. Clamp the clamp on the USB drive almost all the way down the connector.

2. If possible, go outside. If you can’t go outside, make sure your workspace is well ventilated - resin fumes kill brain cells.

3. Mix about an ounce of the casting resin with eight or nine drops of the catalyst in your cup. Stir for sixty seconds, scraping the bottom and sides. Don’t worry about any bubbles you might be making; they’ll naturally work their way to the surface and disappear as the resin hardens.

4. Carefully pour the resin mixture into your plastic breath mint box. When it’s 2/3rds full, stick your USB drive in there and continue pouring until the resin is at your desired level.

5. Over the course of the first hour, check every fifteen minutes and make adjustments to the position of the USB drive in the resin - you want it to be straight up-and-down.

6. Leave everything overnight.

7. In the morning, cut the box away and there you have it! (Yeah, cutting the box away is kind of a pain - there should be a release agent you can use to coat the inside of the plastic before you pour the resin - if anyone knows, leave a comment!)

Here’s how mine turned out - yes, it totally works!