When and How You Can Use Molds

I once had a customer who carved faces into naturalfavorite lamp that kept breaking in the same place. It
wood. His problem was that too many people werewas a plastic part and I didn't want to replace the
asking for his artwork and he couldn't produce it fastlamp so I made a rubber mold of the part and
enough. So he got the idea of having me make ofpoured all the extra pieces, I wanted, using resin.
mold of his wooden piece, so that he could pour theSmall plastic parts can be so easily replaced, if you
design in hydrastone.just happen to have some rubber compound and
When he was finished, these hydrastone pieces,some resin.
looked just like the wood. Give you any ideas?Of course, there's always molds for ceramics and
There are rubber compounds, designed to take highsome of those molds are of suitable shape to pour
heat, like molten metals and paraffin. You couldslushed plaster. Things like small vases, figurines, etc.
design your own candles and make a mold of it. YouIt all depends on whether or not, your plaster piece
wouldn't even have to use paraffin for the design.will remove from the mold, easily. All you need to do
You could use sulphur free modeling clay to makeis soak the inside of your ceramic molds with shellac,
the design then pour your wax into the mold.add some mold release and pour in your hydrastone
I see no reason not to make salt n pepper shakersor plaster.
out of hydrastone, using rubber molds. They don'tYou can create incense burners with hydrastone,
have to be glazed inside, just dry and safe.simply by making a rubber mold for the outside of
Hydrastone being a very hard plaster, does not dustthe design, as well as the inside. The inside piece
off.would actually be a plug. Again, remember that all
Once you've formed something out of anything rigidplasters swell and then shrink slightly so the plug
(wood, pottery, plaster), you can make a mold of itneeds to not be solid, to make it easy to remove.
and reproduce it in hydrastone. Then you can paint itYou can make a mold of your own face!:) Check out
to look like anything you wish: wood, porcelain,all the products and information on Smooth-On and
whatever.see for yourself. You just might come up with a
My daughter has an idea for a soap mold and is justthousand ideas.
waiting for me to mix too much rubber.:) I had a