Excited, apprehensive, now we’ll see the results. Removing the clay cover to the feet shows a full flow of rubber to that point; a good sign, and no air bubble at the high spot. Examination at each of the vent holes shows pink rubber filling. I am cautiously optimistic that my planning to vent the mold for this step has been successful.

Carefully open the mold. Don’t force. It’s said that it’s simply air vacuum that holds the parts so tightly together, not stickiness, at least not if you used a release properly. Once it gives a little, it will eventually open cleanly. Tap the wedges gently, wait ten minutes, tap more, wait, repeat.

With luck, the mold halves will separate exposing the clay side to be worked on next, not the silicone side, because I don’t want to remove the silicone from the model at all. In this case the clay blanket tore apart somewhat, but OK.

Remove all the clay, and protective plastic wrap. Save it all to weigh later to calculate the volume for the next silicone pour. The clay at the parting line actually removes easily from the model if you didn’t use much force applying it in the first place. It’s more difficult to get clay to stick to itself than not. Small amounts of rubber can leak through the parting line in places if it’s not tight enough. Just pull it off with the clay.

All the clay removed. The model’s suffered only slight damage which I’ll touch up. That’s why I laid the piece on it’s back first. it is this first side “down” which get the most wear during the process. The ‘up” side stays a lot neater.

Looks ready to do the second side of silicone. It may be easy. What a lot of work to get to here. What a relief to think I’m getting near the finish.

Meanwhile, in parallel development, the box mold has received a plaster top, and being turned over, the cradle and clay parting line is removed in prep for the next silicone pour.

 

Imagine my relief to be at this point in this project, and all’s gone well so far. I expected that I could do this, with enough foresight and patience, but I’m still very surprised when it works out.