Jan 5, 20235 min read

Today’s Tinker: Pouring the Gothic Church Molds

I'm always asking what's next. My search for shiney silver continues as it informs my next actions.

This weeks Main event is pouring the Molds for the Gothic Church!

I started by organizing the placables I want in a church. Despite the fact that it's a bigger building than I've cast in the past, the inside is modest. I decided it could fit an altar and 4 pews, and a few more things against the walls.

Once I had that done, I began to prepare the mold boxes for the Roof, the windows and the Accessories. I decided to use a new softer silicone for some molds too, and those gallons came in the mail, 60min after I paid for them. A VERY auspicous event. My inner tinker rushed to work. Honestly I don't understand what magic cause this to transpire. So... I poured the molds, let them cure and then put them aside to plan the moldbox for the foyer. This would be the first significant mold of size I've poured in 6 months. I prepared a cardboard box, glued it, to seal it's cracks and ran duct tape around it. It truely was a slapdashery of brilliance. And it didn't spring a leak either. Now, the foyer to the church is not quite that big. It's less than 3" wide, it's about 3" wide again, but it's deep. About 6" tall. My goal for this was to make it a single pour mold. But since it only has 3 walls, I figured a one part mold would do the trick.

The inside walls of the mold are about 1/2" thick, but the outside walls of the mold are closer to an inch or more. My decision to leave them that thick was becauae the shore hardness for this new silicone is 14. I usually use 25 or 30. So, in order for a mold not to deform with plaster poured in them the walls should be thicker to retain their integrity. It's either that or use a mother mold.

I've yet to pour a virgin cast, but will continue to detail it here. I may need to modify the thickness of the mold walls to make it possible to demold a cast. Time will tell. The silicone holds up much firmer than I expected. Ot was an important test before I poured the main body of the church.

The virgin pour of the foyer, or vestibule, went very well.

Again, the goal is to pour the main church with it's 4 walls in one mold. Traditionally I'd just pour a wall, and glue them together. This is sometimes too much work afterwards. It's Ok sometimes, but it's just not efficient enough others. Since the chirch walls are all of the same surface material, hence easy to paint, It allowed me to plan the design of this with the floor, and all 4 walls in the same master. grin

So. I poured the inside cavity of the church. I knew this was going to be a 2 part mold, with an inside and an outside. What I didn't know yet was exactly HOW i was going to achieve it. but I knew I had to pour the inside chamber.

This went horribly. I poured the inside chamber with a void in the middle but didn't account for the void..... um... floating. So. Without losing too much hope, I secured the void section as best I could and let it cure where it was, cocked almost against the wall in one corner. *sigh*

After letting it cure, I set the mold on it's side horizontally and poured a little more against the portion of the wall that was too thin. Disaster averted.

Then I needed to devise a way to add silicone to the inside mold up the sides of the outside peaks where the roof would sit, to complete the pour of the inside mold.

After staring at it a short time, and taking a clue from my previous bout with the mold process, I placed the master horizontally again with the peak at a very slight angle. I placed putty all around the outside edge, and poured enough silicone to have about 1/2" deep wall that would cure to the inside moldbox.

I let it cure, turned it on it's other side and repeated the process.

The Inside box was done.

Then I poured the first of two plaster 'voids' easy. I placed foil inside the chamber, poured the plaster about 1/2 way deep and let it cure.

THEN I needed to pour a second much larger plaster void that would rise to near the peak of the walls. So, I used all the clay putty I had to create a wall around the entire outside of the internal mold box area, laid foil over the walls and pushed it down into the void area, and poured a bunch of plaster into it about to within 1" of the peak of the outside walls.

**whew!*

This is the pic of the plaster void with it's clay walls removed. I missed the opportunity to take a pic of the clay walls. Oops. But here you can see the outside mold has been partially poured, and where the void sits.

The rest of the process saw me pouring silicone until it covered the entire outside of the master, with some mold release brushed onto the internal mold, the inside peaks, so they wouldn't stick to the outside mold.

Needless to say, I'm very proud, even pleasantly surprised, that it actually worked. *grin*

What follows is a gallery of all the pieces cast by this project that make the entire Gothic Church.