Wednesday, August 29, 2007

molding for beginners- Summer fun

One of the greatest moments one attains while building scenery is the day when you push something out of your first mold. Now, making molds is fun. It can be a bit troublesome at times, but it is incredibly rewarding. Of course, there are a lot of great molds out there to buy. However, for some reason, people still have trouble with all this. Something about making or dealing with molds is simply too intimidating. Believe me, I understand.

So, what I would like to suggest is that you begin with a bit of light work. Okay, here it is. You know those things they sell down at your local Rite Aid or CVS for kids to play in the sand with? Yeah, the bucket and the little thingies to build sand castles out of? Those are molds. Now, if you put sand into them, they will make sand castles. Guess what happens if you put plaster of paris into them?

You can buy the plaster of Paris down at Wamart. Go to the Hirst Arts web page for how to pour the stuff. Spray Pam or some other kind of cooking spray into the mold. Pour the stuff in. Let it dry. Pop it out. Sometimes these molds can be hard to release. I find that a little light tapping with a rubber mallet gets them out quickly.

Now the great thing about this is that these molds are actually designed to build castles. For this reason, if you do this a number of times, you will end up with enough pieces to build a castle. Note, the towers will not be hollow, but hey...You'll have a castle!