beadyeyedbrat

   Three Molds in One

Me, leave well enough alone? You don't know me very well. I thought that instead

of having several mother molds for these three small pieces, I could make one big one.

Here's what happened.

click on images to see larger ones

Three little blobs all covered in silicone mold stuff.

Rather like icing a cake when the icing keeps coming

back off onto the spatula. They're hot-melt-glued

to the work surface. The boards for the dam are

also glued down.

First pour. 2 cups plaster to 1 cup plus a tablespoon water

to make it just a bit thinner than usual. I picked it up

several times and slammed it down on the table to

help break up any air bubbles and help it settle into

any crevices.

If you look at the larger image, you can see where bubbles

have come to the surface. The plaster has also gotten well

into all the corners. As far as I can tell, anyway.

Another 2 cups of plaster mixed with one of water. I'd thought

that would be enough to fill the mold. Wrong!

Another cup plaster with half cup water. I'm not sure it will

be thick enough on the bottom, so once it sets up a litle, I'll

more on top. So, it is taking a total of 6 cups of dry plaster.

Tip:

Thomas pondered whether it would be easier to remove the hot glue

from the bottom of the board if it was wrapped in tape. It works

very well when you remember to put the tape side down.

Not a thing of beauty but it doesn't need to be.

It's 6 1/2" wide.

I like using this yogurt container to mix the plaster. Once the

plaster dries, you can flex the plastic and the plaster falls out

easily. It's a 2 lb. container in case you want one of your

very own.

Le Mess

This was a (reasonably) clean, neat and organized work

space before I started.

Aack! Bubbles between the first and second layer. When I'm ready to

mix more silicone for the next batch, I'll fill them.

The originals.

First cast in plaster. They weren't all the way down in the mold, so the sides have bowed a bit. Also a few bubbles. Painted with thinned acrylic paint, I think they look like weathered crates that might have traveled around the world on a pirate ship and gotten banged up a bit. So I'll seal and use them. Next batch, plaster will be thinner and I may try to paint the vy bottom with plaster. The silicone will also be all the way down in the mother mold and I'll wait more than 7 hours to unmold. I made the barrel lean like that. Really.

A group of crates all painted and stacked. They're on one of the pieces of Plaster of Paris I'm experimenting with. Same color paint as the crates, different batch of plaster.

The base is 4" across and the whole thing is 3" tall.