After leaving the gel flex over night to cool I was able to take out the piece of plaster I had taken a mould from, the tip of the plaster had got stuck in the top of the mould bit I managed to get i tout with a small tool, I then used some araldite to glue it back together...looked as good as new.
There were some streaks in the gel flex and there was a gap where the tip of the plaster had caused some bubble but nothing that couldn't be altered after casting the wax in to the mould.
Before I started melting my wax I decided to do a displacement test to see how much glass I would need to make my piece out of glass, a friend let me borrow a billet of gaffer casting crystal because I want to do this with a billet so I can get used to casting with them so I can see the results with glass from the same company, and so I would know how much I would need to order if I wanted to use the billets. The way I did the displacement test was by pouring 1000ml of water into a measuring jug (I didn't expect I would need any more than that) then pouring the water into the gel flex mould until the water got to the top of the mould. The measurement on the jug was 600ml meaning that I would need 400ml to fill the mould (this includes the overflow) I then got a billet and put it in the 600ml of water to see how much I would need to get 400ml by getting the water level back up to 1000ml. The one billet got the water measurement up to 900ml, meaning that each billet is equal to 300ml, so I would need 1 and a third billets to fill the mould, so I will need to buy 2 billets.
Caring on to casting the wax into the mould, I chose to use a mixture of white wax and yellow wax so that after I've cast the wax it will still be able to carve out anything lumps but also if the studio gets too hot or if my hands are warm when I'm working with the wax the shape wont warp. The wax I was using was quite old and dirty so I would have to be careful when heating it because it might be dangerous for me to stir if it starts bubbling, and I dont want to get any of the dirt into my mould because it will ruin the surface. I melted the wax at around 65 degrees C and stirred it regulaly. Then when the wax had melted completely I left it a while to cool, not sure why I do this it's just something I've been told to do, so I do. When I poured the wax I did it very slowly and careflully to make sure I didn't get any dirt in the mould, when I was left with just the dirty wax at the bottom I poured it into a bowl with news paper in so I could throw it away and used some more newspaper to scrape up any bits left in the melting pot ready for the next person who uses it (because I'm nice, unlike some nasty people who
leave dirty wax in the pot when they have finish, these people are bad people!). As the wax was cooling I used a spoon to break the skin on the wax and scoop some wax out to hollow the mould out a little to save some time when steaming the wax out of the mould, and get the wax to cool quicker. When the wax had cooled I used some wax caring tools to clean out all the lumps and bumps until I was happy that it was good enough. After l cleaned the wax up I put the piece next the plaster piece to compair, the wax seems to have shrunk from the gel flex mould so I will have to do another displacement test when I have the wax cast in a mould. If I'm lucky I could save some money and I may only need 1 billet.
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