How can I secure small items to base please?

[crystaldot]

Hi,
I have bee making small food safe rtv silicone moulds/molds for cake decorating. The items I am moulding are very small ie 1/2" to 3". At the moment I am using anchor dit which is an expensive wax like substance which never gets hard, to secure it to the base of small stainless steel pots. But I am finding that some silicone is getting underneath the anchor dit, plus the anchor dit is expensive. Can anyone please recommend something that is food safe that I can secure eg., small flat back/cabochon rose to the base of a s.s pot so that the silicone does not seep underneath and also secures the item to the base. It has to be food save and hopefully not as expensive as the anchor dit. I am going to be making a lot of them every day, so would prefer to secure them permanently to the base but feel I may not be able to get the cured silicone out of the small pot afterwards, so will probably be temporary. Also time is a factor, so I can not spend a long time on each piece as I will be making many moulds in a day.
Really hope someone can help with this
thanks so much
crystaldot

 

[merch]

Hi - provided you made the original out of something a bit heat resistant (say milliput) - melt a small cube (depends on how big the pot is - enough cover the base 1 or 2 mm deep) of pure solid beeswax (not polish) into your s.steel pot and drop the master onto it when molten. (You may need to hold the original down while the wax cools with the end of say a wooden chop stick). It should seal the base of the original all round and the RTV won't stick to it - when you want to recover the pot - gentle heat will remelt the bees wax...I used high bloom gelatine for a job like this years ago but the beeswax works better and doesn't retard the cure of the RTV...hope this works out for you and good luck with the moulding. If you can't source pure beeswax then try red wax cheese rind -it's food safe but not as strong...

 

[crystaldot]

Hi Merch,

thanks so much for your help, I will try this out today.

Best regards from Crystaldot

 

[merch]

I saw in the other thread you're still looking for more attachment ideas - if your s.steel pots will accept a magnet then how about dremel a recess in the back of each master sculpt to glue in a small neodymium magnet (you can buy them online) they are ultra powerful and even a tiny magnet will stick the originals down with plenty of force to resist the suction of the rtv. It depends on the grade of stainless in your pots (medical stainless will not let a magnet stick but some of the less expensive pots have enough iron in to stick to). If you know any computer repairers you can get thin neodymiums out of stripped down old hard drives. Don't let them get hot in an oven or they loose their magnetism.