Molds, Molds, Molds...

And here begins the plaster mother mold section of the moldmaking process...

First you need:

Lots of burlap cut into squares. Check.

Lots of vaseline. Check.

And lots and lots and lots and lots of plaster. Check...oh wait no we ran out and had to order more midway through...but we got it so Check!

After applying a thin coat of vaseline to the rubber, metal and the base, we mix up a bucket of plaster. We've been doing 16lb mixes at a time, as its seemed to be enough for both of us to use and not run out of too fast yet it doesn't set up before we're done.

A little about the plaster, we're using a mix of FGR and pottery plaster (Usually we use molding plaster instead of pottery plaster but they seem to work the same). We dry mix it first and then use a 1:3 ratio for water to plaster (4lbs water:12lbs plaster). We add the plaster to the water, let it soak in for a little while and then mix it using a mixer on a drill. (Using the mixer gives you a nice consistency.)

We then use brushes to paint up the first coat of plaster (as seen above), staying within the shim of section we're working on. At first the vaseline resists the plaster a bit which is always a pain, but as it thickens it stays up.

Closeup of splash coat being applied.

Then we go in for a second coat, where we coat pieces of burlap with plaster and over lap them across the whole surface...it ends up looking like a terribly uncomfortable patchwork quilt or something like it...

In this photo you can see a bit of texture difference between the area with burlap (the bottom half) and the area with just a splash coat (the top half).

We then go in with another coat of burlap over the whole thing. After that, we further build up the edges of the section of the mold using more burlap and thickened plaster.

After starting the 2nd side of the mold.

2nd side with splash coat.

Here you can see how we end the plaster at the clay wall. Before working on the piece to the right, we'll remove the clay wall and vaseline the plaster edge of the first piece so the two pieces don't stick to each other.

Working hard...