COMPLEX SILICONE MOLDS FOR SCULPTURE & LIGHT WEIGHT MOTHER MOLDS clay advanced techniques

John Burns, John Burns here with John Burns Fun Art. The Real McCoy. We have two previous videos, Silicone Molds for Sculpture and we have Lightweight Mother and this one is the third part of our series here. And in this video we are going to drill the holes and we're going to use a cutting wheel right here. I'll draw a line and then we're going to cut this off. Now there's still a lot of water in this. My studio has been a little humid. So I'm going to let this sit for a few days to a week before I start cutting it. And I recommend doing this in a well ventilated area. If you're going to do it inside, set up a box fan with a filter on it, you know a regular furnace filter, and that will suck the dust into that a lot better than if you just do it without. However, outside is best, okay? Then we're going to pry the mold open, clean it up, make sure it's good to go, and then we're going to take the silicone jacket and I'll show you how I cut it open. There's a technique. Instead of doing a traditional slice mold, which is very difficult to line up, then we're going to reassemble it and put a bottom on it. By the time we're done, this mold will be ready for production. And may I also say, if you've enjoyed these videos, please subscribe to my channel. And if you like this video, please hit like, please share with a friend. You never know what they need to see either, or if they know someone who might benefit from this information. So that's good. And check out the description down below for the items used in this video, and other things that you might find helpful. I have my social media links there, and all this stuff, so hey, let's get going. So the first thing we want to do, I like to consider these holes about, you know, finger width, pinky to thumb apart. You know, not as far as you can go, but you know, generally, somewhere about 6, 7, 8 inches, somewhere in there. And that's good to go. So for some of these, just make sure that when you're drilling through, you don't drill so low that you can't swing a wing nut. That's why I went to this side, and marked it off, because I can drill through, and I know that that's going to clear on that side. So it's just something to think about. To cut this nasty stuff off, just be careful. You can get cut on it. If it grabs your glove, it'll snag. I don't know if I've just done this long enough that I don't get cut so much, but it will cut you. So I consider both sides of the flange. Right here I've got about an inch and a half. If I go to the other side, is that going to be sufficient? Just make sure when you draw your line. And this line is nothing more than a guide as where to cut with the cutting wheel. But once you have that cleared off, then you can use this to kind of sculpt it up a little bit so that it looks a little nicer. And whatever you do, be careful with these cutting wheels. Sometimes they can grab and run, and especially if some of you are doing this a little differently than the way I prescribed, and say like you sandwich silicone and you're cutting through the mother mold and the silicone, if you grab too thick of a spot, that wheel will get stuck and it'll throw this forward whichever direction you happen to be cutting. So just be mindful. This is just plaster and fiberglass, so it's just going to go through it like butter. I've had that silicone grab it and yank this wheel so hard. I mean it almost like, it's spinning super fast. The silicone grabs it, but the motor is still torquing it, so it torqued it so hard on there, that wheel never came off again. None of us. I mean we had guys almost jumping on it to twist that free and we couldn't get it off. This DeWalt drill, I just recently acquired this, maybe in the last four months or so. I've been really impressed. It comes with two little batteries. For studio use, this is like right on the money. My old one, it's been limping along for like over a decade, but you get these little batteries. You can get bigger ones. These are considered small. They charge up pretty good and they hold their charge really well. So you got your torque and the drill function here. So this is a quarter inch, I got quarter inch bolts that are listed down in the description. Maybe I'll list this drill down there too. So when you tighten this up, I used to pull a trigger and hold it to tighten it and that's not how you do this one. You just turn it. That's all there is to it. It's good to go. And so you got two settings here, super fast for like drill function, and this one for torque to drive screws. There's no hammer on it, but that's fine. And it has a light. Pretty good. Check it out. So all of these tools down there. How about it? Okay, so I'd like to do this step. These are also listed in the description below. So these are zinc plated screws, which are great. These are quarter inch, and these are my wing nuts. These are the quarter inch, so anyway, and you see they're quite nice. So some people don't really recognize that it's good to drill your holes and get them bolted first. Don't do that. Try to turn them so that when you seize them, they run vertical because when your cutting wheel comes down, you want to make sure that it's up and down and not sideways because you can nick the wing off on accident. So turn it straight up. Okay so, right, we've got the edges cut off. I recommend wearing gloves until you get like a lot of this dust and stuff cleaned up. This dust will dry out your hands, but you know, once the mold is completed, I wouldn't worry about it at all. Okay, we want to get it freed off the bottom. I started to cut, but then I remembered I'd come up with a technique to make the bottom better. So disregard that line, and we're going to open it up. Also want to mention, you probably saw me take the cutting wheel and lay it on here somewhat diagonally as I drug it. So after I cut it, I just drug it on the edges. I've just found that these edges can be so sharp after you take them clean that I've gotten like a paper cut before just rubbing it too many times. So I just take the wheel and kind of drag it over that, and it just knocks it down enough that it happens a lot less. My throat's a little scratchy. I think I was in, must have been inhaling some of the dust, I don't know. Maybe I haven't talked enough yet today. I only had two cups of coffee, so once I get a third cup in me, I'll be chatterbox. Here we go. Okay, here we go. How are we going to start? You can usually see the lines here. I don't know if you can see these lines very well. These lines are going to be fairly close to the parting line. You see, you can see it's like fabric really. This is the fiberglass, fiberglass mat, so your parting line's going to be down the middle somewhere. I mean, that's a pretty good indication. So let's see here. I'm going to take this one, it's a little more pointed, maybe let me start a little bit. Here's another indicator, Vaseline. That Vaseline is obviously on the part. Let's just, see that, that starts to open up and then I can put, and if it doesn't open, you know, just leave them in there and keep working your way down until it completely opens. This is pretty good. So this was my large panel, and this one is pretty, pretty darn good. A little bit of clay, leftover water-based clay I believe, and maybe some other stuff. We'll get these cleaned up in a minute, but listen to that. Very thin, you can tell, lightweight, good sound. There's one, and if we want, put this one. This might be the most difficult. Let's hope it's not difficult at all. I don't know if you can hear that snap, crackle, pop sound. There might be fibers that are connected somewhere through the plaster. So now that that's like that, I probably want to get that out of that side. And those fibers that are connected are probably right here, because I didn't saw it down far enough to where the Vaseline was. So the Vaseline was just beyond this part, so the fibers that were crossing is that split, you can hear them tear. Ta-da. So that one's off, and here's my little patch job with the clay. You can leave that in there, or take it out, it's up to you. There's my transfer of my number one, and the transfer of my number two, and if I'm not mistaken, this one should release up. Yeah, no problem, that was perfect. Alright, hey, that's pretty good. So the next step. There's still Vaseline on her, so that one needs to be wiped down before we cut that open. You can see, that's the flange. This will be where the board attaches. Okie dokie. And, I know, let's just, I have full faith in your abilities here, to understand what I'm doing. I'm just going to take a, that wheel, my angle grinder with the cutting wheel, and just cut this off. And I'll try to make that as nice as I can, because we'll end up using this bottom. I'll just keep that bottom instead of using this for anything else, and attach that as our base, so that we can close that off. And this will end up being a screw hole, I'll drill a hole here to bolt it to the bottom, and here, and whatever else seems appropriate. And before I go to the next step, I just want to say that this is a, this is a handheld jigsaw. If you find yourself where you don't have an angle grinder with a cutting wheel, I cut this one with this. You just, it might get tricky, but you can do it, and you can get through it, and it's not going to be nearly as pretty as the way an angle grinder can do it, but you can do it. And it is far less dust, and you can take your sure form, these are in the description down below, the blades, and I believe the handles, yeah. And you can take that edge off like that. We have this residual stuff on here, Vaseline, try to wipe it off. I'm wiping all of the excess of Vaseline off of the edge here. You know, you can use this to help smear on the edges, which helps lubricate the inside of the mold from spillage through the seams a little bit, just a little bit more. So the trick to this, I'm going to show you, is that we're going to reassemble these mold pieces so that the bottoms are all together, so when we do our cuts, they're uniform. Get some of this water-based clay off of here. My fear is that this could get in the way of the mold making a proper alignment. It would act as a shim, and I don't want any shims, I want the mold to be tight. Okay, there we go. So there's the inside of a hollow mother mold without the silicone. Interesting. So yeah, you can see my black line, and I'm going to go ahead and just cut that as cleanly as I can. And I haven't weighed this yet, so let's just see. So it's a nine pound. But I can tell you, I've picked up some of the plaster molds that are even smaller than this, and they weigh a lot more. So regardless, probably count on it with the silicone, you know, weighing under 12 pounds. So that's good, that's good. So with her, I only want two slices, even though I have a three-part mold, so we're going to determine which of these black lines we're going to cut. And it's better to cut on your parting line for your mother mold, in my experience. So I like to do it on the edge, so that right before I close it, I can go through and make sure everything looks good. The way that we cut these open, let me show you. So let's just say that this is the silicone piece, the silicone wall. And on this back part, this line across the back, we want a straight line. So this is where this is going to come through on the back. Well, on the front, I'm just going to draw a line so we can see where it's coming through here, these cross points. This side is going to be more like this. And when it comes through, it's going to have more of a kind of wave, but it's all going to end up on this line. So that as the two pieces come together, they kind of sit like that, but there's a straight line. And you'll see what I mean. So in essence, what this does, is this is the sculpture, and this is the mother mold side. Okay, this block is the silicone. The dotted line is the backside, which touches the sculpture. And the squiggle line is the outside, which is going to touch our mother mold. So I just kind of keep my tip as straight as I can in or up against the model, the sculpture. And then I just fishtail the back of the blade. And that creates that wavy effect with a straight line. In essence, that's what we're shooting for. And what this ends up doing is creating a very minimal seam line on the finished piece. Very minimal. So there we go. And you can tell when it's registered properly inside the mold. So, and one of my rules of thumb, and I learned this at one of my automotive jobs, they say the show surface is what's important. We're on a mezzanine that did rapid injection molding. There was the show surface, which the customer would see when they walk around their vehicle. And then there's the inside. And that didn't matter so much. But it got me to thinking, in terms of my own work. So we don't want to cut a seam on the show surface. If a customer is first walking up to your piece, or, you know, your gallery peeps, whoever you want to show these to, you don't want them to see a line or an area that has been corrected to hide a seam line. So try to hide it in more inconspicuous areas. Some people may only want to put one line. Just two-legged figure, I'd cut it into two. Because in my experience, any time I have to pull a mold off of a two-legged figure, the figure ends up breaking when it's plastered. You know, it won't if it's resin. And it may if it's wax. This here, she has a lot more foundation. So I'm going to follow this black line, which is my parting line for the mold. And I'll just take it down, this black line, and then come over the arms so that that can open up and allow the arms to come out that way. That'll be good. And where I put this back together, this is the big half. So I can put together these two pieces first. First, and I can make sure my mold is all lined up nicely, and then just put this last big section right on top. Easy peasy. ♪♪♪ All right, so now I have the base cleaned up. I got off all the silicone and the plaster that was stuck to it. And, of course, the original sculpture. So I got the original sculpture off. And one thing that you might want to do, I had already drawn corner to corner and perceived corner of the true center of this. So that, you know, that would be that intersection. And I just took my drill press and drilled down right there. Quarter inch specifically because these are the bolts that I use. So I just push that in so that it's flush right here, you know, on the backside. Maybe you want to pull it back just a hair. So this here has already been drilled true, like a plumb line. And then when this is put on here, however that sets with the stuff in the bottom, when I take it apart, I've got a screw set in the material and that allows me to mount this to a base with a bolt already in the material. So if you're doing resin casting, you can just put it straight on a board and you don't have to go and drill a hole and then reset your screw and make sure that it's straight. I'm going to, let's avoid the big area first. Let's, where do we want to put this over here? This side feels thicker than this side. This feels a little thinner. So I'm going to put a hole here and I'll just come across this area. Make sure that this is good. And this is pretty close, so I like this area. I mean, it's not dead across, dead center. It's off a little bit, but I think we'll be okay. And I want to make sure to avoid a flange. That's super thick. This is okay. I want to make sure my wing nut can clear when I spin it shut. And you know what I might do? Not too close to the edge because that's where it gets thinner. So if I can, I just want to stay close to the silicone because that's what we're trying to cinch down anyway. All right. So these seem to be pretty uniform in distance. If I go here to here and bring it across, that's pretty close. And then if I come across here, that seems pretty close too. So I'm getting this kind of direct down and they both cross across. So I feel good about that. Going to use my DeWalt. Again, this is listed in the description below. Great drill, light, all these things. So I've got it set on my drill function. So make sure this is lined up where you want it, where you've drawn your lines. I'm going to use my Lazy Susan on this one because turning it by hand can jostle it and cause it to jump a little bit. And I don't want it to jump after I start. You'll see why this is important. So then I just take my pencil and I trace inside. And if you were to drill these without looking at the bottom first, I mean, it's a complete crap shoot. Okay, so I'm going to put this in my drill press so that I can get a true up and down because I don't like screws that go cattywampus for the base. I want them to be up against it nice and flat. So I'll be right back. So these are carriage bolts. These are two inch. I have these listed in the description down below also. So check those out. And of course, these have a little square underneath. And if you want to get a hammer, you can pound that shape right into the bottom of this board. Hopefully I drilled my hole straight. Okay, good. I did a pretty good job. So your material is going to stick to this board. Surprise. Antidote right here. So I drew this circle because that's where I built my pedestal on. And expect a little bleed under because sometimes that silicone just doesn't sit flush. So you don't necessarily have to rub that into the wood. I do just so there's not so much glop sitting on top. Put your bolt back in there. And this time when you push it through, remember your carriage bolts are going to be in the way. So make sure that sucker's flush because that'll be the bottom of your base, right? All right, you guys. That's pretty much it. I'll go ahead and set these out so you can see the fruit of our labor. But I want to say thanks again for coming along. These videos aren't really short. There's a lot of information in them. I hope you watch them in their entirety. So if you like this video, please hit like and please hit subscribe. If you'd like to see more videos like these, please share it with a friend. And please take a moment to check out the description down below. These items in the video are down there. I am an affiliate with Amazon. So you will be redirected to their site. And of course, I get a little kickback from that with no added cost to you. So I appreciate your support in that way. And in the meantime, check out these next videos. I have these listed to give you something else to chew on while you consider your own projects in your studio.