Jello For Perfect Claybed? Molding?

[ILL GREEN]

Hi everyone!

I remember as a kid how my mom would make nonedible Jello sculpts by mixing glycerin/ glycerol in it with a little alcohol. The result was like rubber and durable that could not be ripped easily.

After this brief nostalgia, I wondered if jello can make the perfect flat claybed for molding.

Just think about it; put your sculpt in a tupperware container, pour in the jello mix halfway up the sculpt, place in the refrigerator, wait until its fully ready and viola! A flat bed to pour silicone over for perfect molds.

My question is, has anyone went this route? Will the silicone melt the jello? Or will the jello shrink?

Thanks in advance

 

[andy19422]

Sounds like it's worth trying. I use Alginate but the trouble is the water comes back out of it so you need a fast setting silicone. I'm just wondering if the heat from the silicone will melt it!

 

[zebracardeath]

This is relatively the same way to make fx makeup appliances, When its fresh its not unlike silicone except for the melting point and recyclability.
The use is limited before you loose detail though, you couldn't use it on wed (waterbased) clay and you would need to just get the gelatin over the melting point on oil based clay because you dont want the clay to melt.
Andy19422 is probably right about your pour materials.
This is the kind of thing that would be worth trying on a small batch if you dont want to pay for alginate or silicone or if you need a single/double use mold and want to recycle your mold material.
here are the basic instructions i used to make fx appliances. If you decide to try this buy the knox unflavored gelatin, the sugar and flavoring in jello only makes it more expesive and could hurt the durability of the mold.
Good luck.

 

[ILL GREEN]

Thanks Andy and Zebracardeath; thanks for the link!!

I will definitely try this. Tired of lumpy molds and resin leaking. Though I've used WED clay before, it was kind of time-consuming to get it perfectly flat.

I've read a few articles that jello can be used as a substitute for silicone in molding as well, which sounds cool.

I would like to hear more from the experienced veterans of casting

 

[Mr Mold Maker]

Too much water pooling at the surface (as sometimes happens in alginate, and likely with jello?) can inhibit slower setting platinum silicones so be wary of that. Be sure to seal the surface well in your tests.

It will be easier and serve you better in the future to learn to use clay, and the problems that you're having may boil down to the fact you're using WED, a sculpting clay, when you should be using a "molding" clay.

I would pick up some EM210 or EM700 and try making your walls with that. You may like it a lot more... Just food for thought.

 

[ChickenHaunt]

It's a neat idea, but only if your object calls for a mold wall that's completely flat and level, which really doesn't happen that often, at least in what I do. And it's going to be much easier to make keys in clay than in gelatin. I think you're also going to have a surface tension/meniscus issue, preventing you from getting a square join where the part and gelatin meet. But anything's worth a try!