[Woodcarver] Silicon Mold Question

[Ivan Whillock]

Hi Chris,

Glad to hear you are doing some challenging stuff.  

The good thing about wax is that you can mold it, carve it, and melt it.  That gives you a great deal of flexibility in making a wax model. I'm assuming that your original is in wood.  That would mean that you would likely want to use a rubber mold to reproduce the wood pattern in wax.   With a rubber mold you can get by with a good deal of undercutting, but if the undercutting is severe you may have to make your mold in pieces.  You do that by using shims to separate sections of the mold so that one part of the mold can be pulled off in one direction, and another part of the mold can be pulled off in another.  Then the seams between the pieces of the mold can easily be repaired in the wax model.

Some complicated pieces are even cast in sections and then assembled by piecing the wax segments together--filling in the gaps with melted wax and then carving it or modeling them. 

The rubber mold is flexible so a plaster shell is used to reinforce it.  

Most of the suppliers of the materials also have instructions on how to use their products.

A number of sculptors make their originals in wax in the first place, which allows them to send the wax model off to the foundry without going through that process.

Ivan Whillock Studio
122 NE 1st Avenue
Faribault, MN  55021
Visit my website at
http://www.whillock.com
Visit my Picture Trail album at
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=ivancarve
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris 
  To: [Woodcarver] 
  Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 9:10 AM
  Subject: [Woodcarver] Silicon Mold Question


  DONATIONS to the Woodcarver Mailing List can be made using PayPal OR regular mail. Click this link: http://wwwoodcarver.com/WWWList/WWWList.html



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


        Hi all
   I have a carving that I need to cast in wax. It measures 16 round 24 in tall. With many under cuts and lots of detail, does anyone have any experience with making a mold this large and complicated. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
  Thanks Chris Howard
  Gatlinburg Tn



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  Woodcarver mailing list
  Woodcarver at six.pairlist.net
  http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/woodcarver
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/woodcarver/attachments/20051120/0c89e5fb/attachment.html