A tip for the wick Robert, dip it in the hot wax and hang it to dry before you fix it in the mould, it makes it much simpler and becomes self-supporting. You also get an actual "wick" not a "piece of string" when you de-mould it.
I called the wax supply house, and asked if they carried: "Magnificent, Beautiful, Sticky Wax"; the length of the pause from their end of the phone was hysterically uncomfortable. LOL!!!
Thanks Robert. Perfect timing, I am making a David mould for a candle maker client next week, sculpture arrived this afternoon. Today's video will save me plenty of time. Thank you. Best Regards Jez
regarding the calculation of wax for the sculpture, you can calculate the volume of wax needed easily by water displacement. fill a container to the absolute brim with water, put it in another container that can catch overflow. then put in your object. make sure it's completely covered by water. the water that overflows into the outer container is the exact volume of the object. you can then use that volume to measure out a different liquid, in this case, wax.
I'm in my sixth year of teaching. I normally do EMT classes, but have gotten myself into prosthetics now. I am being trained in a lot of different fields that encompass this area of Medical technology. One of the fields, and the one I am most interested in, is creating synthetic skin using lifelike silicone. I love this channel already and I am going to watch everything you have! Thank you!
This is the best molding and casting channel I found and if you were here on youtube years ago, I would avoid many mistakes and save so much time. Thank you for teaching us. Watching your results, I will now be cutting molds as first option from now.
Bravo, that sure was something new. I tried wax casting and found that controling the right pour temprature can be a problem. I think that moderate heating of the mold does help in some ways. Still amazing to see what some folk artists can do with this medium. Wax has been used as a casting compound producing religious folk articles (figurines, angels etc.) for ages. As I understand there are a lot of old secret formulars and ingrediants around, kept secret outside the family. If you make it to Germany, Bavaria is a good place to look around for wax art. Makes one speechless to see what castings once where (and still are) mass produced without the aid of a pressure pot etc. I think pressure wasn´t even in this world than .... Great Show as usual - looking forward to next friday.
My father would make sealed molds by pouring another thin layer around the seal, and have them suspended in boiling water. One wick hole filled tight, you can let the wax settle without melting immediately. Then you you can easily tear it back open. Turn off the hot water, walk away. He made a lot of
Great mold and video, very thorough. A couple of tips for you, which you're probably already aware of; A cheap (ebay) pair of medical retractors act as a second pair of hands when cutting open the mould - helpful when scalpels are close to fingers. Soft clay in a syringe with the needle removed creates great spaghetti like 'worms' to seal around mold bases. Cheers Robert.
To avoid bubbles you could carfully slushcast the first part to make sure all of the holes and pockets are filled after which you fill up the remainder of the model.
Interesting to see wax used for casting, I am not sure about Noura’s choice of David, I think Michael Jackson or Joan of Arc would’ve been good subjects for Candle making.
Great Work Robert! Mostly I do CAD modeling, 3D printing, and blow/injection molding models, but you have really influenced me to want to try silicone casting!
I watched to see if making my own molds for candle making was feasible, so obviously I've never made a mild before. I've bought plenty of pre-made molds and the advice for wax is always to slightly pre-heat the mold. Hope that helps ❤. Thank you for this video even if you only rated your end product a B-😊!
Michelangelo starting David at 26 may kill you, but seeing you making such interesting things at an age older than me gives me hope for what my future might look like someday too. Love the channel, love all your vids. Thanks for what you do!
I'm guessing, but there must be some sort of secret wax formula / temp setting that picks up detail better and doesn't shrink so much. I've seen some very detailed candles. Still, a lesson learned is a good day!
Mannnn I can't even right now! ♥️😆🤗 I decided to watch 3 hrs of mold making on RU-vid (because well why not at 3am with insomnia lol). Not only did you make me smile, laugh and learn you added alot of love to your tutorials. ♥️ A breath of fresh air if I must say! Thank you for helping me get over my frustration with mold making! Next... Must learn how to make molds for earring tunnels and earring plugs! ♥️Thank you Sir and keep doing what you're doing!
Very interesting. Looks like the casting is a thinner, angrier distant cousin to David, probably because he isn’t quite as famous. The loss of detail was a big surprise.
Nice to see a simple cut mould . When you held up the original and the casting , even before you said it I could see the shrinkage . Thanks for something different. Hope you're well mate .
why not use hot glue for 80-90 percent of what the wax is for? edit: i see the part where you say hot glue sticks too much but if you put it in the right place (like on the outside of the mold seam) then you can just peel it off or give it a bit of heat to remove it
The proper technique is to use a wick needle and just poke a hole and pull the wick through. I don’t have a wick needle, so I cut the parting line to the top of the head and just secured the wick between the halves of the mold.
@@RobertTolone Hi Robert, watch you a lot. Great stuff. I made a candle mould for a client and created the wick hole with just a thin wire pushed through the top of the mould after curing. Use the same wire with a looped end to insert the wick. The silicon just closes and holds the wick in place.
I have cast toy dog heads in wax for a project in art school. To get out some of the voids out i poured out the hot wax after it coated the inner surface. Then filled after the inner core cooled.
I was just introduced to the channel a few days ago… I’ve been watching a lot of them since… i love the information and how you deliver it. I’m curious about approaching a mold of a reverse light housing for an old car.. would love your input. Thanks for the channel
For this I would say a better outcome would have been had for the majority of the cast to be high temperature tolerance resin cats around a a water solvable plug of some sort...cure the cast ...de mold the cast....dissolve water soluble plug and let dry ...then pour candle into the void created by the dissolving of the plug...this technique while not necessarily the major portion of the cast being what it is here in my comment....wax shrinkage when it cools has always been the bane of pouring high detail candles so a harder wax is generally what would be used here for the visible part of the candle and softer wax used for the core...but harder waxes melt at higher temperature so it may be a problematic combination withe the silicone casting material...the loss of detail in your attempt is more readily apparent because you are looking at the model and comparing it to the candle...would it be that obvious if you only saw the outcome but not the model?
Hi y'all I just have question about making moulded candles and how to slow down the colour change! I noticed in 2 or 3 months the colour of candles that I made changed so I was wondering is there a solution for this
He skipped over his to get the wick through the head of the mold. If the head is in the bottom portion of mold wouldn't you need to drill a whole so the wick pushes through? 🤨
i would look for some sort of color additive that works well with wax it just doesn't have the same quality of the dramatic lighting and shadows that the original does
That was a fun watch, thanks Robert! I've got a book called Pop Sculpture about making figurines and collectibles, and they use wax castings during the refinement process. The way they avoid shrinkage, distortion, and loss of detail is preheating the mold in the microwave as well as doing pressure casting. This necessitates a small reservoir of extra wax to fill in as the shrink occurs, like a larger pour funnel integrated into the mold. They also use crayons (white + desired color) in the wax batch to pigment the sculpture's surface and get it more visible, but I'm not sure if those pigments are safe to burn in a candle.
Yes, a reservoir is a good idea. I often rough out a sculpt in clay then re-cast it in sculpting wax to do the final work. In those cases I make the clay sculpture 8 to 10% oversized and place it on a reservoir base. Of course, I am casting it in sculpting wax which has a lot of solids. That reduces the amount of shrink and preserves the detail. I pressure cast it to remove bubbles and also heat the mold so that the wax doesn’t cool while it is being poured into the mold. Still, it shrinks enough to be noticeable.
what type of wax did you use on the cardboard tube to act as a release agent? and why not use a pencil to indicate where to cut the mould, seems more logical to me?
Nice work! But there is one thing I don't really understand. You have a perfect mould case from when you made the mould but you don't use it for the cast. Would it not make it easier to get even pressure on the mould than with the rubber bands alone?
That is an excellent question Christian. The reason I don’t use it is because it can be difficult to perfectly align the rubber mold with the original case. Also inside the case I cannot see the parting lines. I like to be able to massage, prod and poke the rubber mold into a proper alignment along the parting line. When you cannot see the parting line you can’t tell if it is aligned with certainty.
The important idea here is to carefully fill areas where bubbles of air can be trapped. The problem with techniques like dunking and pouring is that you can’t be certain that air hasn’t been trapped. By carefully identifying problem areas and pre-filling them with rubber you are certain of getting a bubble free mold. Craftsmanship at this stage will save you from having flaws in every casting the mold makes.
Very little. I made a video about the very first thing I ever cast (in high school) which was a bust in concrete. I do know that you can use urethane rubber molds for concrete and they last a long time.
Hi! I apologize if you’ve answered this question already, but what is the name of the ‘waxer’ tool you’re using to fill in the holes with wax? Thank you for your time!
Dear Mr Tolone, i have a 3D print that i'd like to make a mold of, i think i have the right approach but i'm unsure, is there a way i can send you a couple of photos of the object for suggestions? I'd gladly pay you for your time.
You could have maybe filled partially and then rotated the mold in order to cover the inside with wax. this could prevent bubbles and mitigate shrinkage
your channel is so wonderful thank you for sharing knowledge for artists like me who want to do mold making! Your tips and tricks save us lots of wasted rubber!
