Written by NAV Vol. 2 Participant: Cam Everatt
We were asked to bring in a small object to make a mould of. At first, I was hesitant as to what object I would pick, but once I saw it I knew it would be a good choice. I picked a vintage saltshaker, which I believed was from the 80’s. It was a pink poodle with her legs crossed, holding a red cup and wearing catty sunglasses.
Tim then proceeded to show us what steps to take when making the cast of our object. We only had so much time to mix the 2 key ingredients (the base and catalyst) as they had a pot-life of only 5 minutes. After the rubber putty was easy enough to handle, we then applied it to our object, covering it thoroughly but left a hole (where we would pour our resin into). After the putty dried, we had to then build a wall of clay to hold our object in place to cast it in plaster. This was called the mother-mould. My object had split into 2 casts because of the shape. After the mother-mould had dried (which took about 30 mins) we then took our mould out and sliced it down the back to take out the actual object. Tim then showed us how to mix 2 ingredients (also called the base and catalyst) to make the resin. After I mixed the resin, I dyed it pink, and then stirred thoroughly. Once again, the pot-life is very short before it starts to harden, about 5 minutes to be safe. I then poured it into my cast and then waited about 50 minutes.
50 minutes passed and then TAADAAAAA…. out comes my pink poodle, almost in a pepto-bismal colour! I then sand it down and gloss it with wax to give it a nice finish!
Overall the workshop was very well organized and Tim was knowledgeable and precise with everything that he taught us. At first, I wasn’t very excited to be learning on how to make a little mould, but once we got going I became very into the whole idea, and I thank Tim for that. I will definitely be using the knowledge I gained from him to create more mould for upcoming projects.