Have tried to do a few molds using Castaldo’s latex products…
Separating the molds . . suggest that you ‘baby power’ each face of the mold
prior to pressing the haves together … makes it easy to find the separation
and relatively easy to pull them apart.
Keys for each half . . Lets assume that each mold half will require 3
pieces of castaldo latex… For the ‘bottom’ half the mold, put 2 pieces
together(stick side to non-sticky side, one of the sticky sides up), cut 4
roofing nails to about 3/8+ inch in length, place the 2 pieces of latex
which are stuck together in the aluminum mold frame, place the 4 roofing
nails at each corners of the 2 piece latex on the sticky side(which is up),
which is inside of the aluminum mold frame, add the 3rd piece of
latex(sticky side to sticy side now), press down allowing the roofing nails
to puncture the 3rd piece of latex, make the ‘3 piece latex unit into one
unit’, Now ‘baby power’ the surface of the 3rd latex piece - the nails are
showing through about 3/16+ inch, place the item to be molded on the powered
surface, make another 3 piece unit with only non-sticky sides showing, power
the 2nd, 3 piece latex unit, place them in the vulcanizer and 'screw down’
the press lightly(snug!) until the heat is up somewhat, the complete screw
down should be in about 3 stages with full heat up! total process takes
about 15 minutes, plus cool down.
When pouring a wax, depending on the shape of the piece, sometimes it’s best
to remove with the wax somewhat flexible, other times the next morning with
the wax finished… experience pouring the piece is the best judge.
Wax makes a great difference… can’t advise as to brand, cause I purchased
a ‘ton’ from a guy going out of business… can only say that the "yellow"
is to hard, the bluish-purple is great due to flexibility . . not good for
wax touch ups but great for pouring.
Jim
At 07:39 AM 10/19/96 -0500, you wrote:
Jeffrey Everett wrote:
Hi Dave
I hope you don’t mind if I stick my nose in here. The clear compound
isn’t very useful for a lot of jewelry work, unless it’s different from
the old Fereis mold liquid. The molds halves tend to slip over each
other too easily.
Mold making can be a real pain, even if you are able to cut the mold,
you then have to be able to pull a decent wax out, without
distorting*