Thread: "Glove" Mold Making 101

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Static: Me Crystal Skulls - Page 3 - Halloween Forum

I would not reccomend this as a first attempt at casting and mold-making, however, due to the costs involved. That's also why, to date, I've only made 4. At a good $20-$40 a pop, depending on size, they've been choice models I wanted as crystal. This thing just might qualify, we'll have to see if there's budget.

Picked up some Mold Builder. Hope to get sometime to work on these this weekend. I was wondering how it went with the expanding foam in the plaster. Did they crack or anything?

Ah.

Yes, I had about a dozen crack my first attempt. The secret to the foam is you want to spray it around the inside in a layer, NOT in one big clump. After I figured that, I've had no problems...I'll see if I got a pic of it...

Edit: Apparantly not.

Just, make sure you do beads of the great stuff inside, NOT a big clump of it. It expands differently as a big glop than it does as beads.

This might actually be a great solution for making LED flicker candles "bodies"...I have a few PVC candles that I made and really like the shape and glue "wax" drippings, but have had some turn out not so realistic looking.

I wonder how well this would work to make a mould for additional candles. I suppose I could even make a mould from a real candle and then would just have to bore out the center for my LEDs.

hmmm....It's all coming together now.

Excellent tutorial UnOrtho!

Ok I am guilty of bringing up a dead thread.
Ok 1 its a great tut and 2 I have a question.
I bought a plastic ice mold from micheals it is just a half of a skull.What can I use to fill it to make skull...plaster?Or would that be to heavy.

No such thing as a dead tutorial.


Are you sure the ice mold is plastic? Are there undercuts? (is the mold's opening narrower than the widest part?)

Pictures are always helpful.

As for what to fill it with. I suggest getting some mold release, also available at Michaels. http://www.michaels.com/Castin'-Craf...efault,pd.html

After that, you should be able to fill it with plaster, yes. If you're worried about the weight breaking the mold, set the mold on some kind of support before pouring the plaster. I've had very good luck utilizing some spare cloth/towels to act as support for flimsy molds. Just put them in a sink and around so the mold sits properly and maintains it's shape.




(that is a 2 piece plaster bandage mold, with vaseline as a mold release, plaster poured into it. Turned out great, and I did a second with no problems as well. dirt cheap lifecasting)


Plaster of Paris gets warm as it dries, it would be best to remove from the mold while still warm, as it will make the plastic a little more flexible. (or run hot water of ther mold as you remove...either way)

good luck, and post back here when you cast. Love to see how it turns out.

Originally Posted by UnOrthodOx

No such thing as a dead tutorial.


Are you sure the ice mold is plastic? Are there undercuts? (is the mold's opening narrower than the widest part?)

The Wilton ice molds this year were thin opaque white plastic, thinner than the cheaper type of clamshell packaging (the kind you can open with a razor blade instead of having to get out the tin snips). More like the trays some Keebler cookies come in. I figure since they can make a big piece of ice they should be strong enough to hold plaster too (water is heavy!). I want to say I saw someone else did this in another thread but I could be wrong. They're half-molds, so they have a big wide opening to make it easy to drop the ice out of it. I got the spider but never got around to using it for anything.

Of course you could always make a mold out of the mold if you wanted to make a stronger one. The spider one was rather detailed and I thought the skull was much better than the skull cake mold.

Yeah those are the ones I got.I got both the spider and skull one.
I will post pictures of them when I dig them out.
Thanks.