Post #744020 by elika-tiki on Mon, Jun 1, 2015 5:44 PM

After reading every post from Wendy Cevola's thread I figured it was time to start one of my own, to document my journey into the ceramic arts...
This is the rough start of my Duncan-esque moai mug, modeled in plasticine on a PVC tube to save material.

I built a wooden rig to hold the model horizontally, to see if i could get around having to embed the model halfway in clay for the first pour by just pouring the first part in the bottom of the mold space, then pouring on top of that... here's the rig without the model.

then with the model attached by sliding it onto on a smaller PVC pipe.

I drilled a hole thru both pipes so I could secure the head sideways for casting.

I then put the other 3 wooden board around this and sealed it up tight and poured 2 batches of plaster. it worked out pretty well, no leaks or anything. But I apologize as I didn't get any pics of that process, will remember to do that next time.

After letting the mold dry for a week, I cast my first mug this past weekend and opened up the mold after 5 hours of drying - waaaaay too early, the mug collapsed in my hands. So I recast again right away, and this is the result after 30 hrs of drying in the mold:

I had some cracking right at the sharp angles, no doubt a result of poor design on my part (or leaving it in the mold too long...

no worries, as I learned from Wendy to save the extra slip and use it as glue to fill up the cracks. Right now the mug is double-plastic-bagged, trying to equalize the dryness so I can work on it. Not sure how long I should wait till I can start cleaning it up, I assume I need to take humidity into account.

Anyhow, I hope this thread will be entertaining as I work my way thru this. Haven't had a pottery lesson since college, many many moons ago. Seeing how much fun Wendy has been having, made me want to try this. I'll take more pics of my mold-making process, stay tuned!

thanks for watching, Elika-tiki