Post #654965 by Jürka on Tue, Oct 9, 2012 2:12 PM

Ahoy!
Today I opened the mold and had a first look at my catastrophic Kumuhonua prototype... Not too bad really... Ofcourse this particular Tiki will stay sober forever, but this is not important... I learned lot of things.
The bottom problem I think I'll solve the way that I will press the wooden ring into the bottom after I'll take it out of mold... Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't...
You may never use filler in the mold! Nowhere! The clay will get stuck in it... For example I filled some holes in the backside of mold... and now my prototype-Tiki has a bullet-hole in the back, because that part of clay got stuck to mold and just rub the piece off... All the surface problems (specially between and on teeth) are because of filler... There are lot of places where those fillerpieces came off of mold and got stuck to prototype... So I had to remove it with knife... and fix the surface as much as I could...

Next time I must take a long stick and stir it inside to lose bubbles from edges... There are some in my prototype...
Next time when I pour the clay out, I must do it by moving the mold around... that all the clay would not slip from one side... At moment the thickness of sides are not equal... plus ofcourse the damage which the falling wooden bottom caused...
I guess my clay had right amount of water inside, sides got something around 5 mm thick... I guess it's ok for firing...
One side of top broke off all because of filler... Mold was made by filler in this part...

And here it is... The first Kumuhonua... with bullethole in the back and no bottom... I cleaned those three vertical lines from top to bottom... Worked little bit with teeth and few places, but didn't give too much attention to refinement, because I have to make a new mold anyway...

I like the result... The looks is exactly as I have wanted it... and now I have much more faith that the coctail-loving Kumuhonua will come alive one day!