Mold making material

[Pop23]

I've started a new hobby, pewter casting and I ran across this while trying to create a low cost flexible mold material that will stand up to the heat of molten pewter.

This has not worked well so far for pewter, but for other, less hot materials, you might want to give it a shot.

Simply enough, get a tube of 100% silicone caulk, white.

For every ounce of caulk, drop in 2 drops of blue colored dish soap and stir them together with a stick.

The dish soap contains glycerin and it allows the silicone to dry no matter how thick you apply it. Without the soap the silicone will take weeks, if ever, to completely cure.

This is very sticky, so when applying it to a model, mold release is advisable and coating your fingers with soap keeps it from sticking.

I made some very detailed molds using it, but they seem to melt when pouring a few pours of pewter.

Hope this might help others looking for resin or plastic, wax, soap molds.

A small mold, using the above, costs less than $3.00

 

[Missourian]

That will come in very handy...thanks Pop.

 

[Pennywise]

Pop, you need a specialized hi temp silicone to cast metals. Great public service posting the caulk molds, especially for crafters and hobbyists. I use it professionally when I need a quick cheap mold to cast wax or resin for further refining. Professional silicones are very expensive.

 

[Pop23]

Pop, you need a specialized hi temp silicone to cast metals. Great public service posting the caulk molds, especially for crafters and hobbyists. I use it professionally when I need a quick cheap mold to cast wax or resin for further refining. Professional silicones are very expensive.

Do you have a materials suggestion?

I've used this for resin casting molds and it works very well.