Statues

When you are duplicating or making a statue, silicone is your material of choice. Silicones copy details up to 1 micro meter. Silicones are flexible which will greatly facilitate the removal of the final casting. Our silicones normally are 2 component liquid silicones that harden at room temperature (Room Temperature Vulcanising). However when you prefer to brush the silicone onto your model you can thicken the silicone using a thixo.

With silicones you can make flexible moulds of statues and figurines for wax, soap, concrete, cement, acrylic resin, plaster polyurethane, epoxide and many more casting materials. If you use a resin that is “aggressive” to silicone, like polyurethane, polyester or epoxide the number of castings you can make is limited by the kind of resin and the volume of the casting. All other neutral casting products can be cast into this mould almost limitlessly.

When building a silicone mould we normally advise to build a 5 mm thick silicone skin. For larger moulds however this will make the silicone mould less stable. To counter this one can use a support. A support is often made out of wood or plaster. Lightweight supports are made from acrylic resin with glass fibre fabric or an epoxide support material set. Often the case / moulding box in which the silicone is poured over the original model is used as a support.

Moulding boxes can be made from wood, plastic (like a case for butter) or even made with Lego stones or kneaded with plasticine. The better the box fits around the model the fewer silicone you use. Please take care to lacquer / finish moulding boxes made out of porous materials like unfinished wood or clay. This also goes for the model you want to copy.