Musings

Casting A Hairy Paw Foot II

It’s almost as if reader Mitch was staring over my shoulder.

Indeed, in order to get the PVC molding material hot enough to flow nicely over the hairy paw foot it needed to get so hot as to melt the Lego block dam around the mold. That was really aggravating as it resulted in me throwing away several dozen blocks.

In addition, getting the PVC that hot without scorching was a stinker. I eventually used a sand bath on my hot plate to hold the sauce pan, but that made the entire process a full morning adventure.

And, the mold itself was adequate but on balance pretty unimpressive.

Since I did not yet have my jiggler set up, and probably because I did not take any surface tension differential into consideration (that could have been mitigated with a drop or two of Photo-flow surfactant) the plaster casting was even more unimpresive. My result was also affected by my impatience as the plaster realistically needed three days in the mold to cure and I only waited for one.

I will try to cast another plaster foot in the mold with the new considerations — jiggler, surfactant, longer curing time — but if that does not work it’s back to the drawing board. Or at least back to my tried-and-true silicon mold material.