Restoring ancient and torn silicone BBC moulds.

[PB Props]

I've been given a pair of silicone moulds to make myself a set of casts of two Classic (Tom Baker) Doctor Who monsters from the 1970's, one being The Hand of Fear and the other being The Brain of Morbius.

These have been on my want list for decades, ever since I found out that the moulds still exist. This is what they looked like on screen:

The Hand of Fear

The Brain of Morbius

Being so old, they're both starting to show their age and on the first test cast that I did, I encountered huge problems - they leaked like a sieve!

Both sets of moulds have tears, voids and missing sections that have caused all manner of issues, so to get anything decent out of these, they need repairing, so that's what I did.

On both sets, having established that my new silicone is compatible with the ancient material, I set about patching the splits, filling the voids and bulking out the tear outs - and I have to say, it worked beautifully!

This is the first pass on the initial split repair. It's not much to look at here, but the repairs worked wonders. No more mis-registrations leading to deformed pulls, no more voids in the casts... just clean, perfectly detailed pulls - just what I wanted.

A nice, but raw pull of The Hand, with a little bit of flashing to clean up...

And the Brain. I need to fathom a way to increase the clamping pressure because the flashing here is thick and ungainly - but that's what test pulls are for.

All I have to do now is paint them up and add them to my collection.

This is a video of me making the repairs.

Thanks for looking!

 

[13doctorwho]

I am so JEALOUS!! I've been wanting to sculpt Eldrad's hand from the Hand Of Fear for years! But you actually have the original molds!! That is too AWESOME. If you decide to recoup some cost by selling casts keep me in mind.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

"Hand of Fear" and "Brain of Morbius" are some of the best of Baker's stories (though you'll be hard pressed to find anything "bad" until season 18), congrats on getting the molds! I know someone else here not too long ago had acquired the molds (or got a mask from the molds, I forget) for the "Robots of Death" masks.

Looking forward to seeing these finished!

 

[PB Props]

I am so JEALOUS!! I've been wanting to sculpt Eldrad's hand from the Hand Of Fear for years! But you actually have the original molds!! That is too AWESOME. If you decide to recoup some cost by selling casts keep me in mind.

I've been after these for years, so it's nice to be finally working on them and they've turned out amazingly so far - which is good. And yeah, I may do a run of them, but we'll see!

"Hand of Fear" and "Brain of Morbius" are some of the best of Baker's stories (though you'll be hard pressed to find anything "bad" until season 18), congrats on getting the molds! I know someone else here not too long ago had acquired the molds (or got a mask from the molds, I forget) for the "Robots of Death" masks.

Looking forward to seeing these finished!

Cheers - I have moulds and casts of quite a few things that I'd like to work on as time allows it - and yes, I've got a Robots of Death mask too (I can even lay my hands on the tabard moulds that a friend of mine owns), plus I have a few other things including the two original Davros heads as well. Loads of projects to cover, so really I ought to get myself into gear on them!

 

[joberg]

It's great to see the old molds repaired and also kept in better health because of it. T.V. history should be preserved as equally as movie's

 

[PB Props]

It's great to see the old molds repaired and also kept in better health because of it. T.V. history should be preserved as equally as movie's

True. It's terrible how some items have just gone to waste over the years because of age. If these can have their lives extended, that's all good, plus I have a perfectly good copy with no shrinkage to use as a new master for a new mould so that the other can be retired and kept as is.