Today I knocked the resin out of the moulds and realised how much less work it is if you get the mould right in the first place: I would have needed even more shellack… I think I’ll try melamine moulds for the next set. Also saw the effect of too much heat – hard to avoid in this weather.
Lynsey had to do lots of sanding outdoors in the full sun for me to get the MDF off as the sander at the foundry was too difficult for me to hold with my RA-affected hands. So I did some hand sanding and will be getting an electric sander I can use to finish off.
Now I have an idea of what the different papers/treatments look like, the next step is to make some maquettes of pieces that could be actual works!
Somewhere in my last post I mentioned a small MDF mould, actually it was 10 MDF moulds that were supposed to be cubes but weren’t. I could have kicked myself but I’d already ordered the squares from a local timber yard and was so excited to have found somewhere that could cut what I needed at short notice that I forgot to add the width of the MDF to the piece for the base!! Luckily it doesn’t matter too much.
Sarah, Steve and Lynsey at Meltdowns were great. From today’s notes I know which masks to use and which gloves, what to use to clean up resin (without catalyst in it), what utensils to use, how to measure the quantities required, what to watch out for – heat, bubbles … how shiny the shellack has to be. Patience is a key ingredient and “it’s all in the preparation” is a much used but all important mantra.
I got as far as pouring all the resin into the moulds, so it will cure fully overnight and then tomorrow I can see what has happened to the paper and work on the finishing.
