The Home of Kelp Entertainment - FAILURE
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07:07 pm
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FAILURE
Since the last time I posted, I have spent every waking moment locked in an epic struggle to find some way to fabricate the Ennis tiles I wanted to use to dress the set for "Rumors." And I lost.
The whole endeavor was based on the idea that to make enough tiles out of paper mache in the alloted time, I had to make as many molds as possible, hopefully enough to cast 20 tiles a day. Further, since I had only a small budget to work with, I couldn't use the usual pricey rubber compounds I normally use for molds, so I was limited to working in plaster.
So the theory went like this:
1. I make the first tile in foam core.
2. I make a rubber glove mold supported by plaster from that.
3. I make four plaster positives from that.
4. I make a four tile mother mold from those four tiles.
5. I cast a plaster production mold from the mother mold.
6. I cast paper mache in that production mold.
7. While the paper mache is drying, I cast another production mold.
8. I pop the dry papier mache tile out of the first mold, and then load both production molds with paper mache.
9. While the paper mache is drying, I cast another production mold.
...and so on, riding the geometric progression train to tile town.
The whole process started breaking down in step 3. Right from the first one, the plaster poured into the rubber mold simply did not want to relase from the mold. I'd cast plaster in rubber a million times before, so I was pretty confused by what was going on. While I was wrestling the second tile out of the mold, the plaster outer mold broke.
But that's not a problem! Since the plaster was just there to support the floppy rubber glove mold, I was able to keep going until I had the fourth positive plaster casting. After that, however, the rubber had stretched enough that it wouldn't lay in the plaster right anymore, so any further tiles would come out increasingly warped.
The next step called for me casting plaster out of plaster, which is always a dubious prospect at best. Plaster tends to bond permanently with any plaster it comes into contact with as it sets. But I'm smarter than your average bear! I know to paint the positive plaster with a thin coat of latex, to act as a sort of gasket and prevent the new plaster from bonding. Brilliant, yes?
Only it didn't work.
Well, it did, at least the rubber part did. The gasket did exactly what it was supposed to, and the plaster didn't bond to the other plaster. But unfortunately, back when I was building up the original master from foamcore, I gave it a coat of texture paint to give it an authentic stone look. That texture was reproduced faithfully in the plaster reproductions, and was probably why it was so hard to get them to release from the rubber mold. Without the flex and give of the thicker rubber, that texture turned into an thousand little undercuts, totally trapping the positive into the negative. I ended up trying to chisel the negative out so I'd still have at least one working production mold, but even though I'd reinforced it by embedding chicken wire in the plaster, the production mold broke beyond use as well.
A sane man would have given up there and walked away.
I move on to plan C.
I'm starting to give up on keeping things cheap, but not to the point of buying the $80 a gallon self vulcanizing rubber I know so well. Still, there are other options. First, I scrape and sand all the texture paint off my original, to try and help the demolding process. Then I run down to Pearl and pick up some exotic art supplies.
First, I try to cast a production mold in expanding urathane foam. The foam sets up in two hours, so that's great, but the way the foam swirls and expands as it fills the mother mold leaves huge ragged voids. Not only would it look like crap, but it would make any paper mache tiles cast in it very hard to extract.
Then I tried a flexible foam. The detail was much better, but there were still some annoying voids, and since the resulting mold was like a firm foam pillow, it would be impossible to get tiles out of it that weren't bent to some degree.
Even worse, even if either foam product had worked, at $22 a mold, it would hardly have fallen into the budget.
So today, with about two weeks left to go before the set is supposed to be finished, I have surrendered and informed the director that the tiles are no go, and the set will have to get by on a totally paint based treatment. I think it will still look great, but it really breaks my heart to give up on this technique. I feel sure that given another month, I'd be able to work this out.
I think the main lesson I've learned here is don't offer a technique you've never used before to a client, no matter how awesome the finished effect would be if you pull it off.
Current Mood:  frustrated
Tags: casting, rumors, something's afoot, theatre
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Ow. :(
Painful lessons totally totally suck. My sympathies!
Heartbreaking! Though, wouldn't the 'firm foam pillow' one, lined with liquid latex, and supported with a mother mold in plaster for shape work?
Then when you de-mold, you peel the flexible mold off your rigid positive.
Dunno, seems like combining some of what you've done would work.
That might work, but for the expense, I'd get much better results by just using self vulcanizing rubber.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/66543502/1540502) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) oriencor |
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| Date: | December 11th, 2007 05:18 pm (UTC) |
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Whoa.
Damn, man, you are stubborn. A brillant idea that you can fine tune when you have down time (if you have down time)... and I swear, when I saw Blade Runner last week, those tiles looked familair. It's either that, or I'm high..
They aren't mutually exclusive...
| | From: | oriencor |
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| Date: | December 11th, 2007 10:43 pm (UTC) |
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OMG!
There they are! Well, at least I wasn't crazy in thinking those tiles looked awfully familair. Yay! My brain still works!
"I think the main lesson I've learned here is don't offer a technique you've never used before to a client, no matter how awesome the finished effect would be if you pull it off."
Yes, I learned that lesson as a massage boy to the Tiki Kings of Vanuatu.
I remember that time! Now that's what I call a sticky situation!!! |
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