Post #578483 by swizzle on Wed, Mar 2, 2011 1:33 PM

On 2011-03-02 12:03, MauiTiki wrote:
Hmmmmm, I have had several people tell me that what Swizzle is doing is not the best way. That was what I thought would be easy and wouldn't require all the clay when I first started. Hopefully his teacher knows what he is doing. I can't wait to see how it comes out.

That's interesting to hear Rob. When I first started the class I actually took in a few pictures of Wendys mold photos ( I hope thats OK Wendy?) and my teacher said that the way she is showing me how to do it is the way that the "professionals" do it. She has been doing it for a long time and does a lot of slipcasting herself so as this is my first mold i'm interested to see how it works out. It certainly looks far simpler to me if it is just going to be a two/three piece mold but when you start doing intricate molds using five or six pieces, after thinking about it myself, I get the feeling that you would need to pack clay around the master in order to avoid undercuts and to get the right shapes so the mold pulls apart easily. I'm not sure how much of that she has done herself.

Like all of us newbies to mug/mold making it is a learning process and whilst I know I could have gone it alone and done this by myself, the reason I took the class was to give me a kick up the bum and also to have someone guide me through the steps so that I wouldn't have to learn by my mistakes, so to speak, and get it right the first time. If/when I make another one I could end up doing things differently, but so far this technique looks a lot easier to me at the moment. Although I need to wait until it's finished first as I might end up having to eat my own words. :)