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plunc

2 Color Hand Pouring?

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Hello,

Preparing for my fledgling attempt at hand pouring some plastic baits. Took some oven bake clay, shaped it, baked it, and currently have my model sitting in plaster of paris, to create my mold.

Assuming my mold actually works( <_< ), I'm ready to start obtaining some plastic and colors/flake, etc.

My question is this; Im looking to pour a 2 color laminate. Have done a lot of reading on this site, and elsewhere, and havent stumbled upon much info pertaining to this. The bait im looking to make is a 3" cross between a fluke style/ bobby garland baby shad. No funky appendages or legs, just a skinny whip-tail. Want to pour some basic shad, shiner, alewife patterns for main color, and add a dark accent along the top of the pour. Is this possible to accomplish via hand pouring? If so, what would be needed to accomplish this? Was thinking of a harder plastic on the bottom, and a softer 1 for the top, but, as I said before, I have never poured anything, so I have no idea about if and how.

Will be heating plastic with microwave, and pouring out of a pyrex container. Any tips, pointers or info is greatly appreciated.

IMG_20130127_210332.jpg

 

The top minnow is what Im trying to emulate color-wise, the bottom is my clay model.

thanks

Edited by plunc
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I do 2 color pours all the time, in order to get a good bond with the 2 colors you will need to pour the darker color almost immediately after you pour the white color. If you pour it to soon the colors will just blend together and you won't get that clean top line but more of a smudged or smeared line. Now if you wait to long your colors won't bond correctly and you have cold cracks, thats where your plastic has already cooled to much and neither color has bonded to each other and you can easily seperate the 2 colors by pulling them apart.I use Lee's pots and I use measuring cups. I would do some test pours with some scrap plastic and you should get a feel of how fast you gotta pour the 2nd color. If your using a pop mold you can heat it up a bit and that will give you a little more of a window to work with. Good luck and welcome to the club.

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You didnt mention wether or not you sealed your mold, be sure not to skip this step.

No, I have yet to seal it, because, the mold I tried making earlier this evening, didnt work out.  When i tried removing my model from the impression, too much of the POP stuck to the model and deformed the cavity. Any suggestions on what I could use to make the clay model less likely to bond to the POP? Thank god I was able to salvage the model, as I am embarrassed to say, I have several hours of dremeling and sanding to get the contours I want. The tail-end of the model is very thin and rather delicate, and I am afraid of snapping it off when pulling it from the hardened POP. Really dont want to start from scratch. I will note, I have sanded it smooth as can be, with a fine-grit sandpaper.

My process for the mold was like this;

-put 2 drops super glue on the ends of model, and placed it in a container(storm chug bug box),

-mixed my POP/water, and poured into container, with the model adhered flat edge to bottom of container,

-approximately 35 minutes later, went to pop the mold out of container, and had the following problems; a bit of POP had settled between top of model, and bottom of container, and the model had a fair amount of POP that stuck to it. When I finally separated model from mold, it took too much POP with it from the cavity impression.

 

I since have cleaned the POP from the model, and sanded the flat edge(top of bait) to be more uniform to lessen the possibility of POP finding the uneven edge, and settling underneath it. My model has a little curl that occurred during baking, so I need to use some kind of adhesive to get it to lay flat in bottom of container. Was thinking maybe silicone(because i think it may be easy to remove from model after impression is made). Was also wondering if 2 part epoxy would be a good choice to apply to model in hopes of making it release from hardened POP cleaner, and also to seal mold with?

Thanks for the input!

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people use thinned our epoxy to seal it, or you can use elmers + water, or mod podge. anything really just thin it out so you dont lose detail.

 

as for releasing the pop from your model, vaseline works great for me. after the pop is hardened, stick it in the toaster oven for a few minutes before you de-mold it, it'll make the vaseline heat up and release better.

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the rule of thumb for casting your own molds is - Soft master, hard mold / Hard master, soft mold. if you are using a baked clay master you are far better off using RTV silicone for your mold. 

Sounds logical...

What material would you use for a soft model for a P.O.P. mold?

Edited by plunc
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You can buy RTV silicone and make a good soft hand pour mold with it. In my experience, they give a bait a better finish than POP, too. You dont have to worry about chipping the mold. I just like those benefits. I know you can buy RTV silicone kits online but I'm not sure about hardware stores, would be worth looking. They may have it.

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the rule of thumb for casting your own molds is - Soft master, hard mold / Hard master, soft mold. if you are using a baked clay master you are far better off using RTV silicone for your mold. 

If you take this one step further, you make an RTV mold from your hard master and pour 10 baits. Then you glue the 10 soft baits down and make a hard POP or Resin mold.

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