Dry Run

It was a hectic day in the studio Friday, but I did manage to get a reasonable trial cast of "Self-Portrait...".

I decided that before I invested in a whole order of Forton, I'd make a trial run with something relatively simple, like Hydrostone and burlap. My hope was that the cost of days worth of labor, and a few bucks in material would be offset by the trouble spots and problems I would discover, and be able to anticipate for next time.

Here's how it went. First, I brushed in a thin coat of a Hyrdostone into the mold.


Then I added a couple of coats of burlap dipped in Hydrostone, to give the shell some strength. After a couple coats, I added these loops of sixteen gauge wire.



My hope was that the wire loops would allow me to suspend the cast from the ceiling, and pull the mold out from under it.

It almost worked according to plan. I don't have any pictures of me taking the mold away, because it turned out I really could have used an assistant. The wire worked like a champ, and for a minute the whole thing was suspended a few inches above the table, until weight of the mold overcame the structural integrity of the cast, and it started to collapse and bend. I'm hoping that stronger material, more reinforcement and more points of contact will solve that problem, and that the next one will be a keeper.