Pen Making Molds?

[scjohnson243]

We tried to make a few Molds the other day and my wife really enjoyed it - and being a noob penturner, I figured why not use her as much as possible while she gets to play with pretty colors and I get free blanks.

I started looking for molds to pour the resin in and have been kind of surprised how much they are costing ($25 each) so my thoughts of having 15 of these going at once have kind of dwindled (Ok, maybe not *15*)... I realized most of the molds I am looking at (For example, THESE ) are made of Silicone... I started wondering if I could make a few boxes out of wood I have laying around, and cut another piece of wood at the size of the blank I wanted and fill all around it with This to create my own rough molds.... Has anyone made any molds like this, or tried it? It seems like it would be MUCH cheaper to make depending on how far one bottle of the caulk will last...

Thanks!

 

[kingkeyman]

I use corrugated sign board. all you need is scissors and a hot glue gun. Cheap, quick, easy.

 

[PSNCO]

woodnwhimsies.com will have what you need for making a block mold with polyester resin. They have a 3x5 plastic tray mold and a 3x6 mold that work quite well. Both are under $5. If using alumilite, the cheapest and easiest is cutting board molds. There are tutorial in the library.

 

[scjohnson243]

Thanks all -- I have found a few more links on the library (The dropdowns were not working earlier) one is about building a Horizonal mold and basically going over exactly what i was thinking about doing. (Except I'll do it square)

Thanks again, I will check out the link and look into the sign! Thank you very much

 

[Falcon1220]

Have a look in the library under casting and you will find a tutorial on your question

 

[kovalcik]

I made a caulk mold from the library tutorial a while ago. Worked fairly well, but it took about 3 days for the caulk to harden up comletely. IIRC my mold was about 6" square with 2 blank openings. It was about 1.5" thick.

 

[Darley]

Check my tutorial must use the same type of Silicon and would cure in 24 hours happy castings

 

[randyrls]

I saw an article in a recent Woodturning Design. Expose cornstarch to air. It absorbs water from the air and you mix it with acetic cure caulk in a ratio of about 10 parts caulk to 1 part cornstarch. Water and detergent keep the caulk from sticking to your hands.