Moulding practice. New skills learnt.

I joined in on a group tutorial on moulding. This was to show us how we could minimize the use of expensive silicon when making moulds. I learnt that it is important to plan out the complete moulding and casting process before you start to make sure you get the most out of your materials.

We made an alginate mould of part of our face which we then filled with plaster. This gave us a plaster cast of one of our facial features. We screwed this onto a mdf board. This was important to keep the place of the item. We then covered this in a 10mm thick layer of clay. We made dove tail shapes in the outside of the clay to give the silicon something to slot into. We fibre glassed over this making a large funnel at the top as a pour hole. It is always very important to remember where you are going to pour your material. We then poured the silicon into the funnel created . This resulted in an even layer of silicon. This is important to minimize warping and to save material.

The mould could then be unscrewed and cast into again and again with very good results.

The problem I see with this method is that you can only use it to mould something hard. If you had a clay sculpt how could you cover it in clay with out destroying your work?

I got allot of benefit from this practice as it had been a while since I had been in the casting/moulding rooms.