Here is a link to a downloadable PDF file with a list of the rubber, resins and waxes I use in my videos: www.dropbox.com/s/kz6mhmf7v5vpy7l/Material%20and%20Suppliers.pdf?dl=0
After seriously getting into making molds and casting my sculptures, I haven’t done anything in quite a few years……watching your videos, Robert, has me chomping at the bit to get back into it……thanks so much!
I've been working through all of your videos the past week or so Robert and I'm really impressed with both your skills and ability to communicate concepts. Greetings and best wishes from Aotearoa New Zealand
Roll out cly 5mm thick, cover. Make fibreglass case. Drill pilot holes into wood base. Remove clay. Replace shell screw down, runners and risers. Pour silicone. Clay standbye for leaks and many drilled tiny holes in fibre shell. Cover pattern with cling film if worried clay sheet will stick to pattern. Easy
Most people incorrectly think Beeswax is 'bee poop' or is a substance ejected from glans in the bee's mouth as they often will absorb taht a bee will look like its chewing beeswax and spitting it out to build with. However its MUCH more complicated than that Female worker bees make the beeswax to build the honeycomb. The forager bees bring the nectar back to the hive in their honey stomach where it is passed from bee to bee to reduce the water content and become honey. To produce a pound of wax bees need to ingest 6-8 pounds of honey. It is estimated that bees need to visit an 30 million flowers to produce a pound of beeswax. Female worker bees convert the honey to beeswax. Bees huddle together to increase the temperature in the hive to at least 33 C which enables the wax glands in their abdomen to convert the sugar from honey into beeswax which oozes through small pores to form scales on their abdomen. They or other hive worker bees chew these small scales to turn them into beeswax of the right consistency to build the comb. The wax scales are about 3 mm across and 0.1 mm thick and about 1100 scales are needed to produce 1 gram of wax. Bees maintain the warm ambient temperature to ensure the wax can be worked into hexagon cylinders. This explains why just body heat is needed to make bees wax pliable and it otherwise melts at lower heat than other waxes. Bees apparently discovered that hexagons are the strongest and most efficient structure in which to store the honey, as that shape can holdup well, will not break or collapse from the weight of the honey and not ruin all the honey or kill all the brood if the hive is attacked or is damaged. A bear or other animal can swipe out a section of the comb to eat while the rest will stay enact even if knocked to the ground. Beeswax is initially clear and becomes yellower/darker as it’s used to store honey, pollen and raise their brood. The color of beeswax varies depending on the color of the honey and its age. You can see the variation in color of the beeswax if you source your Beewax from local source where you can choose which wax you want. The local Beekeeper can usually identify which pollen was made into what honey and then into beeswax, and can usually date the age of a hive and how long that beeswax has been in the hive. If a have is damaged the bees will look for any parts that have fallen from the hive and consume consume any beeswax and honey in those parts until nothing is left and the recycle it and build it back into the hive or if the hove was damaged too badly, build a new hive with what they recycle. A knowledgeable beekeeper can also identify beeswax produced from recycled honey/beeswax from a damaged hive by not only its color but by the consistency of the wax which is often finer. Beeswax that bees have recycled is often prized by fine wood craftsman for waxing a finished product as its is more easily rubbed into the pores of the wood and seals better then newer beeswax and is believed to give a better luster and for that reason is often more expensive to buy. Beeswax is an excellent substance for food storage as well as it will be tacky in any state of met, from just warmed to body temp or all the way to a liquid,. As as soon as its warmed to around 33 C it is no longer brittle and will be tacky at that temperature and stick well to its self and some other items. The warmer it becomes the more the tackiness increases until its as sticky as a good glue and will adhere to almost anything, Once it cools back below 33 C it is back in a brittle form that can easily be broken away from anything it was put on so is not considered a permanent adhesive. But when 'dried' (aka cooled down to under 33 C) in it brittle state it is an excellent sealant if left undisturbed that will protect even foods for storage from water, air, humidity, dust, dirt and other environmental factors. Before paraffin was discovered beeswax was often used to seal tops of jars and bowls for preserving foods, but care had to be taken to keep it in cool location or the beeswax would melt and the seal would break. It was often warmed up to a consistency where it could be flattened or rolled out like dough and used to wrap cheeses for storage while they cured as well as wraps around a midday meal for worked to take in their pockets. Honey and beeswax both are considered to have medicinal properties and both are often used in different ways on deep wounds to promote healing and fight infection. Bees have become endangered insects so much so that many that use great amounts of beeswax have become bee hobbyists and actually 'rescue' hives to keep in hive boxes in gardens where the bees do not have long trip or a have time to locate pollen so that they happily stay in the beekeepers box producing honey and wax and then the hobbyist bee keeper has all the wax they would need for their real careers. They will often keep a few empty bee boxes available as long as their garden(s) can support more hives and hope that when one of their hives swarms the new queen will just move into the new box and put her workers to building new honey combs out of bees wax, filling them with honey and making a good place for her to lay brood. Because of the steady decline of bees these hobbyist keepers who started doing this just to have a ready source of beeswax and/or honey have become very important to saving the species. Without bees collecting pollen and getting some stuck on there legs and then landing on another plant many food items could not be produced because of lack of cross pollination.
Hi Robert, Another great video. Is it possible for you to put together a list of the names of all the materials you use and where you purchase them from? The wax and the resin supplies etc. Thanks so much again.
Thanks it was wery helpful but I have a question after you finish with brushing the silicone code on the sculpture how do you clean your brush to use it next time ? Is there any way to clean the brush ?
Not that I know of. You could experiment with solvents like paint or lacquer thinner but I never bother. I just use several of the cheapest brushes I can find for each mold. I budget them into the cost of a mold. The two biggest mold costs are labor and silicone rubber; the other materials are relatively inexpensive.
hy, one question a silicone mould is more detailed than the old style plaster mould ??? Acually was looking for an brush on mould an have just pouring silicone , bless you thank you for your videos , so many helpfull tips
Silicone rubber can reproduce fantastic detail. Theoretically, it can reproduce details that you can’t do in plaster because of the interlocking with a rigid mold.
Hi Robert, I love your video's and have learned an awful lot, you really know what you are doing.Can you please answer this. I have just made a casting in plaster of paris and want to make a mould of the casting. Can I make the mould while the Plaster Of Paris is still quite damp? I really want to get a mould made and dont really have the time to wait for it to thoroughly dry out as it seems to be taking quite a while. Will my polyurethane rubber, that I bought, still set around the dampish object? Thanks Les
I get so tense at the demolding! I'm sitting here, turning my ipad trying to see inside the mold, as if! :-) Such a doofus, but I do enjoy your wildly helpful videos. Plus, your ideas have saved me a ton of money on $ilicone. I reckon I owe you a beer!
Silicone rubber will bond to porous materials. So any fabric, etc would have to be sealed. Also silicones often don’t play well with rubber. You would have to test to see if the materials in the shoe are compatible with your rubber.
@Robert would this "drizzle" technique work for a shallow bas relief on a flat surface, or would you always recommend the technique of pouring into the lowest spot and letting it rise as the best technique (if you can use it)?
The short answer is I wouldn’t do it. I would make a cut mold. The only time I make two-part molds is if I have a hard model and even then there has to be a very good reason. Any model made of clay or wax is going to get dinged up when you make the parting line for a two-part mold no matter how careful you are.
You would have to really test, Edward. Fibers usually make the rubber stiffer and more brittle. So it seems to me you would almost certainly give up flexibility. It all comes down to the ratio of fiber to rubber.
I don’t experiment much with rubbers from various manufacturers. That’s because I want the fewest number of variables in my process. The rubber I use for both poured and brush-on molds happens to be a 10-to-1 mix but that doesn’t mean other rubber systems won’t work just as well.
I'm probably wrong but wouldn't it be a lot easier just to make a regular mold ? Time is money and this seems to take a lot of time. Interesting video.
In my client work, time is always more valuable than materials. I would throw a box around this model and fill it with rubber quick and easy. But on my channel I try to show a lot of different ways to build molds. For many viewers the cost of silicone rubber is prohibitive and this is their hobby so time is not a factor.
Your videos are incredible! Are you willing to offer advice to a newbie? Been trying all kinds of materials on these little foam taxidermy forms and it's going nowhere fast!
Hey Bob, I know this is not a sculpting channel but was just curious what is the clay that you use for your sculpture in this video? And another question it's why the need to make the silicone so thick if there will be a hard nother mold? Thanks in advance
Thin silicone molds don’t retain their shape inside the shell. They can buckle or sag. The perfect blanket mold is exactly thick enough to hold its shape. Obviously, the bigger the mold the thicker it needs to be. The clay I used was oil clay from silpak.com. Laura
Hi Robert . What is the brand of the mother mold resin and where can I buy it? I’ve been using plast-paste and sometime plaster bandages for small mother molds but would love to try this material. Thanks!
It looks like the PE fiber filler you use in the silicone fluffs it up to twice its volume give or take. Do you think that this offers a significant cost savings all things considered?
It would make it cheaper depending on how much fiber you add. Maybe a filler like microballoons would add more volume for even less money but you would have to do careful testing and measuring to see how much savings you really are getting.
@@RobertTolone Probably reusing chunkies would be the best way to go to maintain flexibility. Also they dont cost anything at all. Do you draw the line somewhere when it comes to the reusability of old rubber?
If an old mold is really discolored and brittle I throw it away. Plus I like to cut the chunks so that every surface is fresh when I use them. I think the rubber oxidizes and also gets dirty sitting around. Very smart to keep old molds sealed in plastic containers or bags.
@@RobertTolone great tips, I will definitely use them. I use platinum so I guess they last quite a bit longer, but I do run into cure inhibition more often.
Am looking forward to seeing this cast and painted. What a lot of work. All the technology you use is new to me. Where the hell does one buy spray release anyway?
Yes, loyalty and service. When I began my casting career there was precious little information available. This was before the Internet. So Jerry at Silpak became my mold consultant and teacher. He spent a lot of time explaining his materials and how and when I should use them. These were the days when my shop was much closer to their business and I would run over there and look at samples of materials and ask a million questions. Because they have a complete line of materials and they know me I just have no reason to experiment with other brands. Also, I have learned that it is vital in my business to eliminate variables. So having long familiarity with the materials is a tremendous asset to me.
Here is a link to a downloadable PDF file with a list of the rubber, resins and waxes I use in my videos:
www.dropbox.com/s/kz6mhmf7v5vpy7l/Material%20and%20Suppliers.pdf?dl=0
These videos are fantastic. So many helpful techniques I've never found anywhere else. Thank you for making these. 🙌✨
After seriously getting into making molds and casting my sculptures, I haven’t done anything in quite a few years……watching your videos, Robert, has me chomping at the bit to get back into it……thanks so much!
He's so serious in his older videos. Ahahaha. Love it. Love your content.
I enjoyed watching you work
I've been working through all of your videos the past week or so Robert and I'm really impressed with both your skills and ability to communicate concepts. Greetings and best wishes from Aotearoa New Zealand
Thanks for watching, I appreciate your nice comment!
I LOVE your sculpture!!! I just found your channel, I’ve been binge watching 😊. You are so creative and wildly talented!! 💕🇨🇦
Thanks Mouser! Thanks for watching.
Just found your channel. LOL This is hilarious! So funny, thanks for sharing all these tips and real shop talk! SUBSCRIBED!
I guess I’m amazed how each layer goes on for the silicone and it doesn’t separate/shred like mozzarella cheese, As well as for the mother shell too!
I like the sculpture
I really appreciate your videos lol
Love your content, it's very inspiring
lmao I was not expecting the profanity when I clicked on this video but man did I enjoy ur personality
Roll out cly 5mm thick, cover. Make fibreglass case. Drill pilot holes into wood base. Remove clay. Replace shell screw down, runners and risers. Pour silicone. Clay standbye for leaks and many drilled tiny holes in fibre shell. Cover pattern with cling film if worried clay sheet will stick to pattern. Easy
Wow this viscosity is not what I imagined what I heard brushable.
Thank you very much for your video
Muito bom Sr.Robert, obrigado por compartilhar, sua obra é perfeita !
🇧🇷Londrina Brasil
Haha, far from perfect! Obrigado!
Amazing 🎉 and you are HILARIOUS 😂
Most people incorrectly think Beeswax is 'bee poop' or is a substance ejected from glans in the bee's mouth as they often will absorb taht a bee will look like its chewing beeswax and spitting it out to build with. However its MUCH more complicated than that Female worker bees make the beeswax to build the honeycomb. The forager bees bring the nectar back to the hive in their honey stomach where it is passed from bee to bee to reduce the water content and become honey. To produce a pound of wax bees need to ingest 6-8 pounds of honey. It is estimated that bees need to visit an 30 million flowers to produce a pound of beeswax. Female worker bees convert the honey to beeswax. Bees huddle together to increase the temperature in the hive to at least 33 C which enables the wax glands in their abdomen to convert the sugar from honey into beeswax which oozes through small pores to form scales on their abdomen. They or other hive worker bees chew these small scales to turn them into beeswax of the right consistency to build the comb. The wax scales are about 3 mm across and 0.1 mm thick and about 1100 scales are needed to produce 1 gram of wax. Bees maintain the warm ambient temperature to ensure the wax can be worked into hexagon cylinders. This explains why just body heat is needed to make bees wax pliable and it otherwise melts at lower heat than other waxes. Bees apparently discovered that hexagons are the strongest and most efficient structure in which to store the honey, as that shape can holdup well, will not break or collapse from the weight of the honey and not ruin all the honey or kill all the brood if the hive is attacked or is damaged. A bear or other animal can swipe out a section of the comb to eat while the rest will stay enact even if knocked to the ground. Beeswax is initially clear and becomes yellower/darker as it’s used to store honey, pollen and raise their brood. The color of beeswax varies depending on the color of the honey and its age. You can see the variation in color of the beeswax if you source your Beewax from local source where you can choose which wax you want. The local Beekeeper can usually identify which pollen was made into what honey and then into beeswax, and can usually date the age of a hive and how long that beeswax has been in the hive. If a have is damaged the bees will look for any parts that have fallen from the hive and consume consume any beeswax and honey in those parts until nothing is left and the recycle it and build it back into the hive or if the hove was damaged too badly, build a new hive with what they recycle. A knowledgeable beekeeper can also identify beeswax produced from recycled honey/beeswax from a damaged hive by not only its color but by the consistency of the wax which is often finer. Beeswax that bees have recycled is often prized by fine wood craftsman for waxing a finished product as its is more easily rubbed into the pores of the wood and seals better then newer beeswax and is believed to give a better luster and for that reason is often more expensive to buy. Beeswax is an excellent substance for food storage as well as it will be tacky in any state of met, from just warmed to body temp or all the way to a liquid,. As as soon as its warmed to around 33 C it is no longer brittle and will be tacky at that temperature and stick well to its self and some other items. The warmer it becomes the more the tackiness increases until its as sticky as a good glue and will adhere to almost anything, Once it cools back below 33 C it is back in a brittle form that can easily be broken away from anything it was put on so is not considered a permanent adhesive. But when 'dried' (aka cooled down to under 33 C) in it brittle state it is an excellent sealant if left undisturbed that will protect even foods for storage from water, air, humidity, dust, dirt and other environmental factors. Before paraffin was discovered beeswax was often used to seal tops of jars and bowls for preserving foods, but care had to be taken to keep it in cool location or the beeswax would melt and the seal would break. It was often warmed up to a consistency where it could be flattened or rolled out like dough and used to wrap cheeses for storage while they cured as well as wraps around a midday meal for worked to take in their pockets. Honey and beeswax both are considered to have medicinal properties and both are often used in different ways on deep wounds to promote healing and fight infection. Bees have become endangered insects so much so that many that use great amounts of beeswax have become bee hobbyists and actually 'rescue' hives to keep in hive boxes in gardens where the bees do not have long trip or a have time to locate pollen so that they happily stay in the beekeepers box producing honey and wax and then the hobbyist bee keeper has all the wax they would need for their real careers. They will often keep a few empty bee boxes available as long as their garden(s) can support more hives and hope that when one of their hives swarms the new queen will just move into the new box and put her workers to building new honey combs out of bees wax, filling them with honey and making a good place for her to lay brood. Because of the steady decline of bees these hobbyist keepers who started doing this just to have a ready source of beeswax and/or honey have become very important to saving the species. Without bees collecting pollen and getting some stuck on there legs and then landing on another plant many food items could not be produced because of lack of cross pollination.
Great info Pam, thanks so much for this! Makes me love bees and beeswax even more!
Hi Robert, Another great video. Is it possible for you to put together a list of the names of all the materials you use and where you purchase them from? The wax and the resin supplies etc. Thanks so much again.
Aloha, what the name of the fiber , polyethylene mini fiber? Can’t find it….
Thanks it was wery helpful but I have a question after you finish with brushing the silicone code on the sculpture how do you clean your brush to use it next time ? Is there any way to clean the brush ?
Not that I know of. You could experiment with solvents like paint or lacquer thinner but I never bother. I just use several of the cheapest brushes I can find for each mold. I budget them into the cost of a mold. The two biggest mold costs are labor and silicone rubber; the other materials are relatively inexpensive.
Your videos are grate 😍👌🏼
Wow, I thought the sculpture was hard. I was surprised when you pulled it out that it was soft.
Yeah, it was just oil clay.
hy, one question a silicone mould is more detailed than the old style plaster mould ??? Acually was looking for an brush on mould an have just pouring silicone , bless you
thank you for your videos , so many helpfull tips
Silicone rubber can reproduce fantastic detail. Theoretically, it can reproduce details that you can’t do in plaster because of the interlocking with a rigid mold.
Hi Robert, I love your video's and have learned an awful lot, you really know what you are doing.Can you please answer this. I have just made a casting in plaster of paris and want to make a mould of the casting. Can I make the mould while the Plaster Of Paris is still quite damp? I really want to get a mould made and dont really have the time to wait for it to thoroughly dry out as it seems to be taking quite a while. Will my polyurethane rubber, that I bought, still set around the dampish object?
Thanks
Les
I wish I could tell your but I have never tried to to cast urethane rubber against damp plaster. I would do a small test.
@@RobertTolone Thank you so much for your reply. I don't know why I didnt think of that!! 🤣🤣
Thanks Les
Was on pins and needles until the belt sanding was done
Have you tried plaster of Paris and gauze to make the outer shell?
How do you clean your brush? or its one time use only
Would this be good to make 3d archery targets with?
Tin-based rubbers have a relatively short life. They get brittle over time. A urethane rubber might work better and be less expensive.
@@RobertTolone alright ill have to check that out, thank you
I get so tense at the demolding! I'm sitting here, turning my ipad trying to see inside the mold, as if! :-) Such a doofus, but I do enjoy your wildly helpful videos. Plus, your ideas have saved me a ton of money on $ilicone. I reckon I owe you a beer!
If I ever get to visit the Kalahari I’ll take you up on that!
Do you think this would work with a Nike tennis shoe ?
Silicone rubber will bond to porous materials. So any fabric, etc would have to be sealed. Also silicones often don’t play well with rubber. You would have to test to see if the materials in the shoe are compatible with your rubber.
@@RobertTolone Thank you so much
@Robert would this "drizzle" technique work for a shallow bas relief on a flat surface, or would you always recommend the technique of pouring into the lowest spot and letting it rise as the best technique (if you can use it)?
Either technique works as long as you focus on areas where bubbles can get trapped.
@@RobertTolone Thank you for the reply!
If you were making a two-part mold of an oil clay model, what would you use for the parting clay you set the model in?
The short answer is I wouldn’t do it. I would make a cut mold. The only time I make two-part molds is if I have a hard model and even then there has to be a very good reason. Any model made of clay or wax is going to get dinged up when you make the parting line for a two-part mold no matter how careful you are.
Do you think the silicone with fibers addes to it would still be flexible enough for glove molds in some circumstances? TY Robert!
You would have to really test, Edward. Fibers usually make the rubber stiffer and more brittle. So it seems to me you would almost certainly give up flexibility. It all comes down to the ratio of fiber to rubber.
Do you prefer 1:1 silicone or the 10:1 jazz for brushons?
I don’t experiment much with rubbers from various manufacturers. That’s because I want the fewest number of variables in my process. The rubber I use for both poured and brush-on molds happens to be a 10-to-1 mix but that doesn’t mean other rubber systems won’t work just as well.
@@RobertTolone Cheers Robert, you legend
What Clay did you use to create the sculpture
Oil clay from www.silpak.com
I'm probably wrong but wouldn't it be a lot easier just to make a regular mold ? Time is money and this seems to take a lot of time. Interesting video.
In my client work, time is always more valuable than materials. I would throw a box around this model and fill it with rubber quick and easy. But on my channel I try to show a lot of different ways to build molds. For many viewers the cost of silicone rubber is prohibitive and this is their hobby so time is not a factor.
Your videos are incredible! Are you willing to offer advice to a newbie? Been trying all kinds of materials on these little foam taxidermy forms and it's going nowhere fast!
Hi Anni, send pics of what you're trying to do to roberttolone@yahoo.com. I'll be happy to take a look at it. Thanks
Will this powder work to thicken any silicone? Reason I ask,is I only use the 1.1 or 2.1 mix ratio silicones.
I don’t know. The only way to find out is to test it. It’s used to thicken a variety of materials so It has a good chance at working.
@@RobertTolone Thanks
Hey Bob, I know this is not a sculpting channel but was just curious what is the clay that you use for your sculpture in this video? And another question it's why the need to make the silicone so thick if there will be a hard nother mold? Thanks in advance
Thin silicone molds don’t retain their shape inside the shell. They can buckle or sag. The perfect blanket mold is exactly thick enough to hold its shape. Obviously, the bigger the mold the thicker it needs to be. The clay I used was oil clay from silpak.com. Laura
Hmmmm blue cookie dough
Hi Robert . What is the brand of the mother mold resin and where can I buy it? I’ve been using plast-paste and sometime plaster bandages for small mother molds but would love to try this material. Thanks!
I use Trowel-On 60 urethane resin from Silpak. www.silpak.com. It’s a 2-part A/B system that they sell as kits in various sizes. Thanks for watching!
It looks like the PE fiber filler you use in the silicone fluffs it up to twice its volume give or take. Do you think that this offers a significant cost savings all things considered?
It would make it cheaper depending on how much fiber you add. Maybe a filler like microballoons would add more volume for even less money but you would have to do careful testing and measuring to see how much savings you really are getting.
@@RobertTolone Probably reusing chunkies would be the best way to go to maintain flexibility. Also they dont cost anything at all. Do you draw the line somewhere when it comes to the reusability of old rubber?
If an old mold is really discolored and brittle I throw it away. Plus I like to cut the chunks so that every surface is fresh when I use them. I think the rubber oxidizes and also gets dirty sitting around. Very smart to keep old molds sealed in plastic containers or bags.
@@RobertTolone great tips, I will definitely use them. I use platinum so I guess they last quite a bit longer, but I do run into cure inhibition more often.
Am looking forward to seeing this cast and painted. What a lot of work. All the technology you use is new to me. Where the hell does one buy spray release anyway?
You can order it off amazon, universal mold release
@17:04 I'm here from the future...plug the bottom holes or they will leak in next weeks video.
I know Ive asked you in the past about materials. Is there a reason youve stuck with this company over Smooth-On or others?
Yes, loyalty and service. When I began my casting career there was precious little information available. This was before the Internet. So Jerry at Silpak became my mold consultant and teacher. He spent a lot of time explaining his materials and how and when I should use them. These were the days when my shop was much closer to their business and I would run over there and look at samples of materials and ask a million questions. Because they have a complete line of materials and they know me I just have no reason to experiment with other brands. Also, I have learned that it is vital in my business to eliminate variables. So having long familiarity with the materials is a tremendous asset to me.
@@RobertTolone Makes sense
Whats the big eye-dea with your girlfriend?!! 😂😂❤