Wendy Cevola - I've finished a Wish List Black Velvet. Time to post the steps. More each day.

poor lil dude, looks like he is sinking in quicksand...

:)

On 2013-05-10 07:22, danlovestikis wrote:
Dan made a bunch of snakes for use in plugging cracks.

Not butt cracks, I hope! lol

On 2013-05-10 15:46, hang10tiki wrote:
poor lil dude, looks like he is sinking in quicksand...

:)

But I get to see his cute little (Dan) tiki tushie! :)
~kele

GROG we are trying to get those GROG muscles pictured on the last page! Your are right though, our mold is crazy heavy, again.

hang10tiki now I feel sorry for him but he'll be saved soon.

WaikikianMoeKele my favorite part too. On the tiki of course.

Progress Report on the first day of mold making.

Continuing day one I mark the level I want the liquid plaster to reach with a piece of clay. GROG I didn't mix enough to make the line so I thought we were making it even thinner. Nope.

Taking off the box you can see how thick it is.

Now we flipped it, nix that, Dan flipped it over and I smoothed this out and we poured this side. I forgot to take photos.

Now we have two sides poured. We belted it so the sides would stay in place.

I dug out the clay on one side and used mold soap so we could pour plaster touching plaster and not have it stick.

We added boards to the ends and belted them in place added snakes and poured plaster. We repeated this for the other side.

For the bottom I made the space between pieces larger so that plaster from the bottom would fill it in and make it less likely to leak. I made a mistake here. I should have also made the bump locks on each piece. Oh Well.

Mold soap, snakes and ready to pour the last piece.

At the end of a long day we had one mold that should work out.

At 18 inches tall that means my mold walls were 2.5 inches thick. A very heavy mold.

Now this mold needs to completely dry out before use.

Tomorrow I'll post the Horror of making the second mold. Thank goodness we can survive with just one.

I hope you have a wonderful Saturday, Wendy

We are so blessed in Sacramento to have the Wendy & Dan Show live...you two are just awesome. The lettering turned out great on our crawl mug...I better clean my shelves of to make room for that big boy! Hope that knee of yours is on a quick mend...for now...take care Dan.

Wow, that is one BIG mold. Love the step by step pictures.

Great cliffhanger until tomorrow. It's like the Lone Ranger movies or the old Batman TV show.

Will the mold work?
What happened to mold #2?
Tune in tomorrow...
Same Wendy time, same Dan channel.

Dale

Great show (again)
:)

Jon

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan that's a big mold.

VampiressRN if we didn't have you planning the event we wouldn't have one and there wouldn't be a need for this Big Boy mug, it is you that deserves all the praise. Thank you hundreds of times for all you do.

littlegiles

Will the mold work?...not like mold number I
What happened to mold #2?...worst part it slipped
Tune in tomorrow...now it is tomorrow so I'll reveal the problems
Same Wendy time, same Dan channel...is Dan now a swear word?

hang10tiki and no re-runs

Hale Tiki way too big and way too heavy. I need GROG to make our molds.

The not so much Progress Report

I just decided to start off with the good news. This shows the inside of the mold that worked. I'll use this one for the crawl.

Now on to the horror of stupid errors through out the making of mold II.

There was one huge error on mold I. I was rasping the outer edges so that they are not sharp when I got the idea to rasp the bottom flatter. After a couple of swipes and "OH NO!" escaping my mouth I realized I was rasping an inner piece that had a bottom already poured. So I've made sure that I'll have a huge leak that will need to be plugged with clay for every pour.

There's so much that I did wrong. Dan's not responsible for the steps and planning. He's the muscle in this process. All the errors are mine.
We poured a bottom piece and when it was hard we took it off and set it aside. Wrong move. I should have left it in place so that all the sides we poured would match. But to make it lighter we took it off and used a board. So of course that made the piece we poured worthless.

Carrying on with the worthless mold II we poured one side.

Then we flipped it and poured the other side. When we flipped it the mold slipped loose of the sculpt. We got it back in place, nope that's wrong, we thought we got it back in place. After we poured the next piece we found that with the straps off it rocked. I should have thrown it out and started again but instead I made more bad decisions and tried to find the place that caused the rocking. I even cut the sculpt. Nothing worked.

So we gave up and strapped it tight with one seam open a couple of mm's and did the top again.

Here's one thing that went right. For the last piece I couldn't take off the straps. With the buckle in the way I had to build a wall on one side.

It held the plaster just fine and we got the end poured for the second time.

After opening the mold I found more damage.
When the mold side slid as we turned it over it broke this off.

Not enough mold soap so the pieces stuck. This is at the eye. Once we can pour (in a month in the sun) I'll see if it can be used in some way.

He had a hard two days so he gets to soak in a nice bath.

At the end of day two.

At the end of mold II Dan did his happy dance while mopping because we are done making molds for now. He only did this with his good knee supporting him.

For mold II we poured all of these pieces. It may be possible, with lots of snakes and lots of hand work, to pour a tiki. I will clean it up and sand and carve on this mold to see what I can do with it. Too much work to give up.

When I try this mold out I will fill every seam with clay snakes and plug it with a bit of slip rotated before pouring it full. It will be an experiment to see what comes out.

Some days are good and some are not. We were too tired the second day and should have waited until I could think clearly. So today we will start on a new project and I'll have better photos tomorrow.

Thanks for taking this bumpy ride with us, Wendy

Wendy,

First, Dan is certainly NOT a swear word, but a word of exclamation. :)

I'm so sorry you had all those problems with the second mold but thank you so much for taking us on that bumpy journey with you. If mistakes aren't made, we will never continue to learn. The Wendy & Dan show isn't just Show and Tell, it is like a really good PBS show; pretty to look at and informative too.

Dale

Sorry about mold#2 problems. GROG like mold-making about as much as GROG like glazing, and glazing sucks.

Wendy & Dan,

So sorry to hear about the mold #2 snafu. :( At least it came after the success of mold #1. That goes to show you how hard it is to do what you do! Thanks for sharing everything with us - the good, the bad and the ugly.

Boo woo on number two
Glad number 1 came out
Can u make all the mugs with 1 mold?
Dan-O go easy on the dancing...
See u two in a few...
Can't wait to get my hands on my SH mug....
:)

Jon

Wendy, thanks (once again) for the visual lessons in mold-making, both for version 1 AND v2. Both are educational, and I look forward to (eventually) casting my way down slipcasting way. I'm sure I'll be searching back for your early lesson thread in mold-making along with these recent ones. Mistakes teach me even more than the other step-by-steps. So, I'm sorry #2 didn't work out so well, but if nothing else, Tiki Ano learned a little bit, so muchos mahalos!

Sorry I'll miss you guys at TC- working on a big work project that you guys can hopefully check out in the future. :)

Thank you to anyone who has voted to keep us on Cool and Current. I swear we have not voted for ourselves. I do know that GROG votes for us so I'll thank him with a big hug next time I see him.

littlegiles when I have really bad days I know that I'll have a good sharing day. It helps lessen the pain.

GROG there is one benefit to making molds. I get to see Dan non-stop and admire him for his willingness to help me. I never once said Dan-it that day. We both were ok because we knew we had one good mold made.

LoriLovesTiki- the good, the bad and the ugly, I just needed one more mold for the last name.

hang10tiki I hope that one mold will be enough. I have to see how long it needs to remain in the mold before it is strong enough to stand without slumping. Or maybe I'll lay him down when he comes out of the mold. Since he is so big I have to learn what works best. We will see you in a few days.

TikiAno I'm glad to help. If it weren't for Kingstiedye introducing me to Mike L. the master mold maker I may never have gotten to this point. That's why I decided that we all need to share information.

Progress Report:

The mold is drying. Just in case I'm wrong and I have to have two or more molds and need to start again I did some repairs to the original sculpt. If I need him I'll add the lettering and start again.

This shows the damage I inflicted on him trying to stop the rocking of the mold piece.

I added clay to the backside.

After I built it up I smoothed it out.

Now if I need him again I'll carve in the lettering and be good to go.

While the mold dries and the heads are shipped to new owners I can move on to other projects. Soon I'll begin a painting for Tiki Oasis 13 but for now I'll make a few Bobs for fun. So far I've done Rum Barrel Bob, Bob Woody, Mrs. Tiki Bob and lightning Bob.

Now showing Underwater Bob

He has waves of water,

two seahorses and a float.

Next up is Clam Up Bob he won't tell you the name of his insider drink.

When I have these finished I'll offer them here for sale. But if you want first chance at one just PM me. So far there is one PM for Mrs. Bob.

Thank you for your support which is very much appreciated. Every morning I look forward to reading your comments.
Sincerely, Wendy and Dan too

Too bad about mold #2. But you are very dedicated and persistent, so I know you will get it to work one way or another. The mug is looking great! I am jealous that you get to check out other peoples home bars during the Sacramento crawl. I need to see what others have done to get more ideas for my bar.

I hope you and everyone else have a great time at Tiki Caliente!

New Bobs r lookin Kool
Just like u 2

Sorry to hear about mold #2...maybe you didn't make this sculpt big enough? :lol:

Those new Bob's are nifty. With all the stuff you add to the sides it makes me wonder do you have to experiment with what "balances" correctly so it can stand up right after it's fired?

Great stuff as usual... and hey no saggy tiki butt. :D

Wendy, looking great. Just so that you know, I believe Dan is a three letter word, not a four letter word, so thus, not a curse word. I suppose if you added a letter (on the front or back end) you CAN make DaNN a curse word, though I think he's just fine as is.

Okay, it's been a long day and I've been catching up on the Wendy & Dan show. And dreaming of making molds. And getting back to the ceramic studio (been a while for me, I have a longer commute than you guys!) :(

Looking forward to seeing more progress (and more Bobs!)

Nice fixing of the SC mug and great job on the new Bobs. :)

Dale

How's Rum Barrel Bob coming? Can't wait to see more of him!

lunavideogames being with tiki people is always a great time. Our crawl is over the top good. We have made so many friends and always meet new people each year. I put mold #2 together again yesterday and looked inside. I think I may be able to get a cast. The front looks fine its just the squares down the side that broke off. I'll give it a try once it is dry. Thank you for the wishes.

hang10tiki I think we need some Koolaid.

tigertail777 wide bottoms keep them balanced. Also my mugs are all thick. So you noticed that there was no sagging. I worked hard on that bottom!

TikiAno you are right Dan is fine. I try to keep the show going. Sometimes I hoard a few photos so I don't run out if we take a day off. Don't tell. More Bob's today.

littlegiles thank you for the Bob mug idea. I will make it in the future.

Hale Tiki anticipaaaation! Rum Bob coming up.

Progress Report:

The molds have barly begun to dry. I'll have to put them in the garage as we leave for Tiki Caliente. We will be gone but I'll be checking in to read and comment. If you have any photos of where you have displayed mugs I've made or you have just gotten your severed head please post photos so my thread doesn't go dark! I'll beg again tomorrow.

Here's the new Peanut PNG mug.

Ukulele Bob
I started by carving out his hands and instrument from a flat piece of clay.

Hale Tiki you can see Rum Bob drying in the background. Here I've added a hand and it is supported by a lump of clay.

Now he can play a tune.

Here I covered the lump of clay with plastic so it wouldn't stick. I try to fix potential problems as I go along.

I added some simple rings around Bob.

The eight new Bob's together.

Now I need to get busy. The Tiki Caliente event is almost here. We take time to get the house ready for our sitter. No clay dust allowed for guests. I hope you like the new Bob's. Cheers, Wendy

That's an all star cast of Bobs
Love UKE-BOB

Jon

[ Edited by: hang10tiki 2013-05-14 09:38 ]

Uke Bob! Dig it! (And Peanut PNG, of course.)

You guys are going to have so much fun at Caliente!

The UkeBob is way cool. Have you done a ShakaBob yet?

As an avid collector of vintage Tiki Bob mugs seeing Tiki Bob with hands really freaks me out!

It's called evolution!

On 2013-05-14 09:33, danlovestikis wrote:
The eight new Bob's together.

That is one beautiful bountiful bevy of Bobs!
~kele

Love Uke-Bob! Very cool idea. Whenever I see a Bob mug with hands, it reminds me of Mr. Peanut from the good ol' days. :)

Have a great time at Caliente.

Dale

Love the Peanut PNG mug--genius! I can't wait to see the colours you use!

Like a tadpole loses it's tail and grows limbs, so does the Bob.

hang10tiki maybe I should do a line of Bob's kicking up their legs like the Rocketts on Broadway!

Hale Tiki we even get to see MadDogMike.

MadDogMike ShakaBob...a good idea.

WaikikianMoeKele I got your letter yesterday, thank you. Bob likes being called beautiful.

littlegiles with MadDogMike there it will be super fun.

Canvas choosing colors is really the fun part.

Hale Tiki he better stop there.

Progress Report for the Bob's

Each mug was sanded and the carving was fine tuned.

Outside Dan used the air=compressor to blow off the sanding dust. Dust in a kiln can mess with the wires and temperature.

Stacking up dust free.

Bottom layer of the kiln. I did a lot of glaze test strips too.

Top layer of the kiln.

Now it is time to get in the car and to head off to Tiki Caliente. I'll check in each day. If you have a photo to post
or to photo-shop this would be the perfect time.

Thank you all for your notes. We sure do appreciate all of you, Wendy

Drive safe
See u at the party....

:)

hang10tiki we just made it to Catherdral City and are checking into the hotel. I wish I could post photos. I will when we are home. Cheers, Wendy

awwwwww...I want to party with the cool kids too! :) Have a blast.

Dale

Huh. So the test strips are okay to be fired on top of each other like that?

Those strips are just going in for the bisque fire Hale Tiki. You can stack and have pieces touching when you are doing that.

Gotcha. I'm not entirely familiar with ceramics...yet.

littlegiles the coolest! All tiki events big and small have the nicest people ever. Wish you were here.

Hale Tiki no glaze on the clay there's nothing to stick. The only thing you should do is put something into something that could shrink enough to trap it. The clay shrinks as it dries but shrinks 10% more during bisque firing. You want it to shrink all that it can so that it doesn't do that when you fire on the glaze.

swizzle exactly. I'll have to check to see if you have posted more photos on your ceramics thread.

Hale Tiki you do everything else, this could be next. Thank you again for putting the Jonice Frank War God in your photo. I'm going to send it to her to see the progression of tiki making.

Thank you everyone for the visit. We are packing up to go on to Caliente. It's just 7 miles down the road. After 11 hours on the road we are rested and ready to see everyone. But the really coolest people, like littlegiles and all of you, are right here on TC!

Cheers, Wendy

Hey Wendy,

I'll be arriving tomorrow around early afternoonish. I'll text you after I'm checked in. EEEEEEEE can't wait for my mugs...this is becoming an annual tradition!

Hope everyone has a blast at Caliente- have some drinks for me and looking forward to seeing all at Oasis (closer to home).

Wendy, LOVE Uke Bob ("Bob Uke-r" (sorry, bad joke). Has he been claimed yet?

Hope everyone has a blast at Caliente- have some drinks for me and looking forward to seeing all at Oasis (closer to home).

Wendy, LOVE Uke Bob ("Bob Uke-r" (sorry, bad joke). Has he been claimed yet?

Atomicchick I expect you any moment to arrive and to give us hugs.

Tiki Ano I'll tag your name onto Ukulele Bob and then once he is glazed you can decide if you still like him. We are having a great time surrounded by friends.

Cheers everyone, Wendy

Hi Tiki Peeps! We are having a wonderful time at Tiki Caliente. Shopping, swimming and live music. Rory's made it all special again. I miss posting photos here while we are gone but I'll overload it when we return. Cheers, Wendy

May try to get there in 2014 or 15. I don't do well in that heat, but Rory does such a good job of hosting. Have fun you two!!!!

Hi Wendy. Great seeing you and Dan at Caliente. GROG need to hang with you more next time GROG see you---International Tiki Marketplace, maybe?

Here's a few photos Hang10 send GROG from Caliente.

Hang10 and Wendy.

Hang10 (on left) and GROG (on right) have a most-muscular calf pose-off.

GROG miss Tiki-Kate

[ Edited by: GROG 2013-05-20 12:55 ]

VampiressRN it was a great party but could have been better if you were there.

GROG just knowing you were nearby was fun. You have amazing calf muscles. I have more photos of hang10tiki to post here.

Tiki Caliente 2013 our trip.

First off I'm a fan of coincidences. I just finished a John Stanford book and a key clue to the mystery was the sale of massive numbers of golf carts. At our first rest stop there they were. I've never seen them transported before.

We heard there were Southern California fires but we didn't know that they were this close to the grapevine crossover. It was so thick with smoke it was dark. The flames were tall and threatening. Nothing would stop us from Tiki Caliente and all our friends so we plowed on through.

Soccer Tiki and Woohoo had recommended the Morango Casino buffet and our timing was perfect for dinner. Nope I didn't gamble. With slowdowns we had been on the road all day.

When we got to our first hotel the Holiday Inn Express we had been on the road 11 1/2 hours. This was our morning view.

The next day we wandered around a cactus garden on highway 111. Hot and beautiful out.

We arrived at Tiki Caliente and right off the handsome hang10tiki came to get his severed head mug. Good photo op.

Soon Rory and Dan were modeling their safari hats.

Mahalo Tiki had lots to choose from and Dan selected a tiki he thought resembled him.

Cy and Dan at Cy's booth of over the top creative tikis.

hang10tiki took me to the SHAG room so I could see the print (autographed by Don Ho) that his wife Jonelle had purchased for him as a surprise. She takes good care of him. I think the message above the print was for him.

There was a drawing that gave each winner an opportunity to purchase an event bowl or bowl and mug combination. When hang10tikis number was called he handed it to Dan and thrilled Dan by his generosity. Dan selected the red and black set. As the numbers were drawn the number of bowls dwindled. Then our number was called and we gave it to hang10tiki. He picked out a bowl in Mystic Blue. It was the glaze color that Swizzle recently used. It looks so good I need to find some here. It was fun to have such good karma flowing during this part of the event.

I am just blown away with how nice everyone is in the tiki world. I ordered a Cassowary Bowl from Eric October. He went over the top to make it extra beautiful. I've loved Cassowary's since I was 26 months old and my mom made a book of National Geographic photos for me. The Cassowary was my favorite photo. This mug will remind me of my mom, a very special lady.

In the pool if I'm guessing right is Dan, Jody, Deb, Diane and CD Tiki.

It was cooler than last year but still hot hot hot.

Mr. and Mrs. Taboo Island were visiting with hang10tikis wife.

Sunset Mike chiseling away with MahaloTiki in the background. There were lots of wonderful vendors who stayed out all day so we could shop.

I had a ring and horseshoe magic trick to take around and Tiki Roots Rocka did the trick! He's at his booth and Dan scored a mug.

Tavarua Tiki was so kind to wear my Bumatay necklace at the event.

Sunset Mike has a gallery and carving page on TC. He also sells in the parking lot of Don the Beachcomber's Huntington Beach on and off. He made some good progress during the event.

MadDogMike has arrived. He brought Dan one of his El Tiki mugs.

He brought for me a left over swap mug that I so desired. The lady on his left is Teresa. We just met and already love her too.

Two beautiful smiles.

Everyone was having fun posing in the shower. As I took my photo, the event photographer took one as he said, now take off your clothes. Oh if only I'd gotten the shocked photo. Maybe it will be posted on the event page.

Cassandra is the beauty in the middle and she belongs to SM Bacon on her left. The first man I do not know but Dough Horne is easy to recognize along with Atomic Tiki Punk.

This is the last goodbye for us. As the bands played we waved goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Loki Tiki and went off to bed.

Can you believe this, the next day as we headed home we saw more trucks with golf carts. Not the same ones. The first day of our trip they were white golf carts and these are green. I'll probably never see this sight again. Have your ever???

Thank you for taking this trip with us here or there. We always have a great time with Tiki people. What else should I call us?
Now it's time to get back to work and make some tikis.

Cheers, Wendy

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2013-05-20 15:08 ]

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2013-05-20 15:16 ]

Thanks for all the pics Wendy. So good to see you and Dan again and well as so many other great Tiki peeps

It's super-deluxe to see so many good people having such a good time. I hope everyone's journey home was calm and safe.