Post #583120 by danlovestikis on Sat, Apr 2, 2011 8:52 PM

Hi Sacramento Ohana and all of our friends and future friends.

Here is an update on how the Sacramento Crawl Tiki Bob Decanter is coming along.
I have posted photos showing how I used a glass vase as a base for my clay when making the next Sacramento Crawl ceramic for 2011. I didn't have enough sculptures clay so I stretched it out by covering the vase. Huge mistake because I wanted to make multiple molds. If I was only making one mold no problem. More than one - horrors. Here's what happened.

We were so happy to have made our first 6 piece mold. However we had not opened it because we were waiting for the day we could take off one piece and mold it three times before moving on to the next side.

The clay would not hold to the glass. I'd take off the plaster section and the clay would break loose and part would stay stuck on the plaster.

I would have to pry it loose and then put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then I had to smooth out the cracks and resculpt the design. To get the three molds. I had to do this entire process three times per side.

Of course our bucket cracked when we were mixing the plaster. Dan ran it outside leaving this trail behind.

We just kept working. There was never a side that held.

We had been at it from 7 am until 5:30 pm. Dan was able to get all the plaster trail off the garage floor, got to love that guy.

By the end of the day we had four mold pieces for each of the four largest most complicated parts. What's left are the two smallest sides. 6 repair jobs and then we will have our four molds. Fingers crossed that they all work. Of course all of this happened on April Fools Day.

Monday we plan to do the last two sides then these will dry for a week or two depending on the temperature and humidity. I am looking forward to seeing if we did a good job or if they leak like crazy. Time will tell. Cheers, Wendy