Resin

[vibraniumluke]

What is the best resin to use when pouring for a head sculpture or bust? Also the best silicone for modeling around the clay positive?

 

[Roughest]

Most people would agree that you are probably going to need a shore 35A Platinum cured Silicone for your mother mold. You need to make sure that your mask material and mold material are the same so that they do not impede mask cure. In other words you can't use a Tin based mold Silicone with a Platinum based mask silicone because they will not chemically work together. As for the shore of your mask silicone I would suggest shore 6A - 10A Platinum cured. The reason for platinum is that it is skin safe, and does not react with your body, where Tin cured will leach Tin into your skin which is toxic.

 

[Alaneye]

I don't think he's making a silicone mask actually. I think he's making a resin bust in a silicone mold. I just use a condensation cure silicone of which there are many in varing prices. The first one I used was more expensve than the second, but the results were no different. If you have a lot of underuts a softer silicone might be better (the shore hardness). The choice of resin will depend on a few needs. I slush cast my Terminators hollow to allow for the eye wiring, which means I don't want a long cure time. If you are pouring solid, then the cure and demould time probably aren't as important (as long as you have time to mix and pour it), unless you really want a fast turn around. Some resins are better for non-pressure casting too, so that's something to take into consideration.

So in the end, your choices of materials depends on the nature of your sculpture. Might help to know where you are from too, cause some materials are harder to get depending on where you are from.

 

[Casttek fx]

Tin cure is cheaper then platinum! Tin cure works well with casting up resin, and clay sculpts for that matter. Smooth-on sells several high quality silicones. If you are going for the less expensive route I would try smooth on mold star or are low viscosity two part shore A to work with. If you go platinum I would try the same 30A in dragon skin. And to get to your main question! The resin I use is called smooth cast 325 by smooth on, works great for all kinds of casts and projects! Hope that helps

 

[amfx74]

I like Condensation tin cure M4503 by Wacker. Easy to use cures at room temperature, can be sped up or thickened easily. Also many of the Smooth-On silicones are good. Mold Max etc.

A fast cast urethane would be good to pour up the cast, clear polyester heats up to much and is going to cause to many problems for a whole head.

Regards

Alastair

 

[Scuba Bob]

I would use a tin cure silicone such as mold max stroke from smooth on and back it with something like fiberglass or plasti paste to make the final product lightweight for doing a rotocast with resin. I would then use smoothecast 65d for rotocasting.