Mold making and Casting products through EnvironMolds, LLC

Alginate is the most commonly used material for making body molds. As it is extracted from seaweed and combined with other harmless substances, alginate can be safely applied on any part of the human body.

In fact, alginate is a natural organic material that is food safe as well. It is used as an ingredient in many food products and is safe to eat. Alginate is also regularly used to capture dental impressions and life casting alginate has evolved from this formula itself. The mold making version is only modified to deliver slower setting times.

All you have to do is mix the alginate powder with water to form a gel like paste. Avoid using hard water for this purpose. The alginate paste can be easily applied on the face, hands, legs, torso or the entire human body too. It will set within a couple of minutes and can be easily demolded by twisting or wriggling the body part.

EnvironMolds provides a range of alginate formulas that capture incredible details and provide an exact reproduction of the body part where it is applied. Apart from the traditional formulas, there is a silica-free version (softer set suitable for babies and small children) and fiber-reinforced version (delayed shrinkage and improved tear strength for larger molds). Check www.artmolds.com/molding-materials/alginate.html for other slower set variations as well.

Regular mold making materials such as clay, alginate, plaster bandages, silicone rubber and polyurethane rubber are good for single use. In other words, you can use them to make a mold once and that is it. While clay, silicone or polyurethane molds can be used multiple times, the material itself cannot be used again to form a new mold.

Perhaps the only reusable mold making material is thermoset mold rubber!

Thermoset mold rubber comes in a box and has to be heated (in a microwave) until it melts completely. Now the molten rubber is directly poured into the mold box to completely cover the model. That’s it, no measuring or mixing is required. It gradually hardens on cooling, and soon a flexible rubber mold is ready for use.

The mold made can be repeatedly used to produce multiple casts without any noticeable degradation whatsoever. And once you are finally done using the thermoset rubber mold, it can easily be melted and reused to make new molds quite effectively. In fact, some thermoset mold rubbers such as Wizbe’s Composi-Mold can be re-melted and reused as many as 35 times!

Three variants of Composi-Mold are available at EnvironMolds website artmolds.com

• Composi-Mold-LT - a soft flexible rubber which sets similar to a Shore A 10.

• Composi-Mold-PowerMold - a firmer version for making two part or push molds with Shore A 25 hardness.

• ComposiMold-FC - a FDA compliant food grade mold rubber.

In sum, thermoset mold rubber is an extremely cost-effective option over the regular polyurethanes for sure!

Liquid latex rubber is lauded as a versatile mold making and casting material. Apart from its widespread usage for making masks, props and other rubber skin products, liquid latex is also the material of choice to duplicate architectural details or to cast plaster, polyester resin and urethane parts. It enjoys great popularity as a special effects makeup product too.

What has won liquid latex scores of patrons is its exceptional strength, tenacity and durability. To add to this, latex also proves to be flexible and is quite inexpensive compared to other materials of the same realm.

However, latex users always need to keep in mind that latex should never be allowed to freeze. In fact, frozen latex is rendered useless and should be discarded. There is no scope of thawing or heating prior to use. So, carefully handle your liquid latex during severe cold spells and store it safely in a sufficiently warm environment (around 72°F / 23°C).

Therefore, when you order your stock of liquid latex rubber during the freezing winter months (whether from EnvironMolds or any other distributor), it has to be shipped to deliver the very next day. This means that you have to select the overnight air shipping option for next day delivery. It will increase the freight cost but guarantees that the liquid latex rubber will reach you in good condition just as you wanted!

For all those artists who have been struggling to make realistic life cast reproductions of the human body, there’s some good news in store. EnvironMolds has just launched a new life casting instruction book on how to create front torso castings from live models.

Penned by Ed McCormick himself, ‘How to Create a Front Torso Casting’ is a 48 page manual with step-by-step instructions on everything from the materials required for making a front torso life cast to the requisite pre-molding and pre-casting preparations. The book will guide you through the minutiae of how to prepare the model and how to apply the mold making material and finish it off with plaster bandages. You will understand the intricacies of demolding the mold from the model’s body and then making the final cast using plaster or silicone rubbers. Once you learn how to finish the casting, a beautifully artistic front torso casting will await your eyes!

Apart from the life casting tutorial, this helpful guide also contains useful information about how to find, hire and work with life casting models. Compensation suggestions and a bonus model release form are also included in the book. You can easily check out the e-book on the ArtMolds blog before purchasing it for $19.95 from Amazon or MagCloud.

The book is especially useful for passionate life casters who find it difficult to attend EnvironMolds’ life casting workshops

Everyone makes mistakes. And most mistakes can be fixed. However, when it comes to taking molds from the human body and making a life cast, I always thought that there is no scope for blunders.

No matter how carefully I applied the alginate on my model, demolded the mold from the body and made a plaster casting, something always went wrong and I had to start all over again. My mistakes were proving very costly and also chipped away at my passion for life casting.

It was only recently when I came across some instructional material from EnvironMolds that I realized that many of my mistakes can actually be corrected! Accomplished life casting practitioner, instructor and author, Ed McCormick assures all readers that most beginners will tend to make mistakes during the mold making, casting and life casting processes.

He offers various studio tips and tricks for both fixing small errors as well as avoiding blunders in the future. He even provides his hotline and toll-free numbers where he is available for direct one-on-one assistance for any kinds of issues.

Ed McCormick reassures that mistakes are normal even for experienced artists and drives that the lapses should not deter us and we should continue to practice the art with confidence and take pleasure in our completed works.

So don’t fret over those tiny mistakes….. After all we are only human!

As a mold maker and casting artist, I use all kinds of solvents in my art studio. While I don’t need a solvent for making a latex mask from liquid latex rubber, most other silicone rubbers and polyurethane resins necessitate mixing, dissolving or thinning with a solvent. In fact, the mold making or casting material becomes usable only when it forms a solution with the solvent.

Apart from this, I regularly use organic solvents like acetone and turpentine to remove spilled paint/silicone and clean brushes, tools and even my hands. While I am extremely careful that these solvents should not be swallowed or come in long-term contact with my skin, I was totally unaware of the potential risks from inhalation!

Recently an artist friend alerted me that organic solvents turn poisonous when inhaled in sufficient quantity or constantly and can even lead to brain damage. I was quite horrified until I came across ArtMolds’ SOLSYL Silicone Solvent.

This multipurpose solvent is VOC free which means that there is no potential risk from skin contact
or inhalation. It evaporates rapidly and is safe for the environment. Moreover, it does not have a strong odor like other traditional solvents. To add to this, it can be safely used on various types of surfaces – will not damage plastic, rubber or vinyl.

Now I can safely use SOLSYL solvent in my studio for various purposes – right from thinning silicone rubber and cleaning spills to the process of enlarging and shrinking silicone molds.

I always thought that water glass or sodium silicate is mainly used for making sand mold castings and getting an antique finish on ceramics. I had vaguely heard that it works as a high temperature adhesive too, but was not aware of its binding and sealing properties.

However, it was only when I started working on clay slips for ‘gluing’ my clay pieces together, that I came to know that the same sodium silicate is the most powerful, economical and commonly used deflocculant for clay.

Sodium silicate will work to thin the clay or reduce its viscosity by dispersing its particles. This allows the slip to be produced with minimum water so that drying shrinkage can be curtailed as much as possible. This may sound hazy, but the simple effect is that sodium silicate works like magic! You have to see it to believe it.

However, you need to keep in mind that after a point sodium silicate starts having an opposite effect, i.e., it actually makes the clay thicker or flocculates it. This is why you need a precise formulation of clay, water and water glass, with the latter never exceeding0.5% of the entire formulation.

If you are wondering where to source this clay slip deflocculant, just turn to EnvironMolds. This leading manufacturer and supplier of all kinds of mold making and casting products and equipment also offers the versatile ArtMolds Liquid Sodium Silicate to suit different applications.