Patience is overrated

That's because the first Oliver casting came easily out of the mold. Sorry for the grainy picture, but it is dark outside so the studio has very little natural light at the moment - but I had to share!

A potter of little patience

This is my last look at this Oliver mold while it is still clean. They don't stay like this, of course. Once the slip gets poured, they get stained. Eventually a corner chips. And of course, I learn what parts don't work as well as I imagined, and what I should have done differently. But at this stage, when they are still pearly white, I can still believe they will turn out rows and rows of pain-free greenware.

I told myself that I'd leave the two Oliver molds until after the molds for his mother, Elsie, were done and drying. Although I do have her tail molds drying, the rest of her is no where close yet.



Here she is almost ready for the first rubber piece to be poured. This is actually an intermediate mold that will be used to get a rubber original, which will then be cut apart so that a separate master can be made for her head and neck. Needless to say, there are a lot more steps before I should be pouring an Oliver.

If I had been virtuous, I would have finished cleaning the studio. In my defense, I can say that half of it is very, very tidy. But then I got to the area where the Oliver molds were sitting in the sun, quite obviously dry. I couldn't resist. Surely it would be okay to test one, just to see?

I don't know yet how well it worked, since it won't be ready to demold for a while still. (More unbearable waiting!) I used to think that molds worked better when they had been "broken in" for a while, but I suspect the real issue is that the newness has to wear off enough that I am reasonably patient.

Evolution of molds

Or, "Why There are Fewer Custom Glazes Out There Now"

When I was first learning to glaze, my good friend and mentor Joan Berkwitz generously offered to send me a handful of old Pour Horse production molds. These allowed me to experiment with underglazing without fear of ruining an expensive bisque, which was a godsend. They also allowed me to learn to pour slip and clean greenware with what were some very forgiving molds.

But their true value came when I began to make my own molds. Nothing teaches how molds work like getting castings out - or not getting them out, as the case sometimes was! They also allowed me to see how Joanie solved mold-making problems. Although I rarely make castings from them anymore (some are truly worn out by now), I still use them in this way.

I had a bunch of them out the other day, weighing potential solutions to some of the challenges presented by Elsie, and it struck me that it might be fun to share a visual of just how far mold-making has come in the last decade. I took exploded views of three different mini-scale molds. All three were designed by Joanie, though the production copies of the middle one (Finn) were made here at Blackberry Lane.



This is "Limerick", which I believe was the second Pour Horse "thumb scale" release following the Shetland mare, "Bressay". Her mold is only three pieces: right side, left side and the ear hat. (Not only did I learn to pour slip with this mold, but I also learned that you don't clean a messy mold with a wet sponge. That's why the one side is discolored!)



The early minis like Limerick were designed with production in mind, so the sculpture was simplified. The hindquarters, for instance, were "diapered". That is, the whole area between the two legs and under the tail was filled in. Once ceramic producers started getting working with sculptures designed for resin casting - with their detailed fannies, chests and "boy parts" - molds had to have gusset pieces. Turned heads also added mold parts. This is "Finn" with eight pieces: right side, left side, ear hat, head/neck piece, two front gussets and two back gussets.

This is now pretty much the standard mold design for what I think of as an easy piece.



That's because we now make things like this. This is the three mold set for "Taboo" with a total of thirteen pieces. His three separate molds cast (top to bottom in the picture) his 1) head and tail, 2) one front and one back leg and 3) the rest of his body and legs. There are also numerous small pieces for the undercuts in this mane and tail, all handmade with each new mold. His various pieces are cast and then he is assembled while the greenware is still damp.

Needless to say, there are a lot fewer Taboos (and Vixen, who casts from a similarly complex set of molds) than Limericks out in the world! But each mold is pushing the envelope for what we once thought was possible in earthenware.



Which brings me to Elsie and Oliver. Those are two almost-dry Oliver molds off to the right. He is, by present-day standards, a relatively easy mold. I have high hopes that will allow me to get more Olivers out in the world.

The two molds to the left are copies of Elsie's tail mold. It takes six pieces to make her tail alone - twice as many as it takes to make a whole Limerick. I'm still designing the mold or molds for the rest of her, so I don't know what the final piece count will be for her. In many ways her size alone makes her easier to do than the minis, though, so hopefully there won't be a host of motherless Olivers.

Unusual shapes

There was no question that I would need to cast Elsie's tail separately. What I hoped was that once I cut it free from the sculpture, I could find some kind of angle that would simplify the shape for mold-making. As it turns out, there wasn't a magic angle. It was a shape that didn't work well from any angle, and I was stumped about where to draw the mold lines.

I finally decided that I'd clay up one side, pour the first side piece and figure out what to do from there. I had high hopes that the planes would suddenly make sense once one was covered, but I also knew that I had rapidly degenerating rubber components. Polyurethane prepolymer (rubber Part A) degrades after it has been exposed to air, so I needed to use what I had left quickly. Experimenting seemed like a good idea.

The process did work, though there really wasn't a simple answer. The strands of the tail move in too many directions for anything but a fairly complex mold. Right now I think it will be a five piece mold, though the area that fits inside the bend may work better broken from the rest of that piece. That's five, possibly six, pieces and we haven't made it to the body yet!

Meanwhile Oliver's two production molds are about half-dry. I am dying to test them.

Wooosh!

All the Flying Hearts tiles sold from the Auction Barn in a flash, so many folks didn't get to see them. If you'd like to see all the finished ones to date, I set up a page on the website.

Those are all gone, but I will be doing a few more in the future. They were a fun break from playing in the plaster, and all the money went to help Melissa and Herman. Good all around!

Ponies that wear hats and ponies that don't

Around here, most ponies wear hats. That's because ears create an undercut; the area between them is hidden. So unless the mane is thick enough to cover the space between, there is a mold piece that goes there.

When horses have turned heads, there is sometimes a second piece that fits over the head or the head and neck. Both Finn and Vixen have these. I had assumed that Elsie would need a hat and most likely a second piece since her head and neck turn quite a bit. But after looking at her a bit, I'm rethinking that part.



One of the first things I did, back when I first started learning to make molds, was draw hypothetical mold lines on many of the Hagen-Renaker minis. I figured they were good examples since they were made with the same process (earthenware slip from plaster molds) and they were mass produced and sold relatively inexpensively. If anyone knew how to make workable molds, it would have to be them!

What I noticed was that many of the horses had heads that turned just right. That is, the turn shifted the ears and even the nostrils to one side of the mold. The rough outline of their mule above shows how this works. See how both the ears are visible? Nothing is hidden, so the mold can pull freely without the 'hat'.



What I've found intriguing about Elsie is that her ears are the same way. I'm not sure I can design the mold to eliminate the hat altogether, but I have been surprised by just how much of her face is on the same plane.



But before I can think much about her face, I have her tail to worry about. As the picture shows, I was was able to cut it free with a jeweler's saw. I am finding its abstract shape an absolute bear to mark for mold lines. Unlike a four-legged animal it isn't an obviously two-sided object. I've decided to have a go at claying it up with only one set of lines drawn (the one side I can see clearly), and then seeing where I am.

Tiles are coming!

I'm in the process of getting pictures of all the finished tiles, and should have them up on the website in the next day. Watch on the "New!" page for teasers, but they will eventually have their own page there. There are enough of them (almost 20) that it will be easier to show them there than here on the blog.

And this is my elaborate system for taking pictures of relief work: a piece of cardstock set on the back porch. It works surprisingly well!