Silicone Molding Guide - Part 1
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- Written by Daniel Livingston
I've decided to put together a basic "how-to" guide that covers making liquid silicone molds and plastic resin molding and casting . I learned quite a bit over the last 5 years about silicone rubber while building my B9 Robot and more than 35 Twilight Zone Mystic Seers replicas. Hopefully you will pick up a few tips here that will help you avoid some of the pitfalls.;; These silicone rubber mold making tips can be used by the hobbyist who want to create molds for making chocolate, or to create soap molds and candle molds as well. When making food molds be sure to only use food safe silicone materials. If you wanted to know what is silicone or how to use it for molding, you have come to the right place. I've added links to most of the necessary supplies where available at Amazon.
If you're going to get serious in molding, you'll want to purchase a vacuum pump. I got mine on ebay for about $100. It's an industrial pump and it is very rugged. You may want to buy one of the smaller hobby vacuum pumps available, but I went for the commercial one as it should last me longer, and it actually cost about the same. You want one that can pull about 29 "inches of mercury" for a complete vacuum. There are several on Amazon that should do the trick.
First, a few things you'll need. Get yourself a good 400+ piece basic set of LEGOS. Yes, I said LEGOS! If you're lucky you have a son that went through the LEGOS phase. If you're like me, you may still have yours from when you were young.;; Either way, they are a must if you want to quickly make molds of various sizes. You want a set with just the basic pieces and none of the fancy special pieces. Your best bet might be hitting up a few garage sales. The smallest set I could find on Amazon was 650 pieces which is probably more than you'll ever need. Don't just count pieces included in a set as most of the smaller specialtity piece are of no use to you. You want to make sure you have plenty of 2x4, 2x6 and 2x8 pieces. The "LEGO Classic Large Creative Brick Box 10698" is as good a starter set as you can get, with no specialtity pieces.
Unfortunately, most of Lego sets now contain so many smaller or specialty pieces that you can't get enough of the longer 2x4, 2x8 and 2x10 pieced needed for mold making. Out of necessity, you need to turn to the alternative Legos brick manufacturers. The imitation Legos! These Lego wannabe's save you some money and provided the larger pieces you will need for mold making. So, take a look at the imitation Lego sets on Amazon. Quality wise, they are almost on par with genuine Legos. Read the reviews and you see many happy customers. The 1000 piece Building Block sets includes many more of the larger pieces you will need when making your molds and they are less than half the price.
You may want to pick up one of the "starter";molding liquid silicone rubber kits and plastic resin kits. I have tried kits from both Smooth-On and Por-a-Cast. Smooth-On has what they call "Super Sampler" kits that contain enough rubber for several small molds and dozens of small resin parts. I placed links to several kits in my;
