Easy Mold Making

Here's a simple way to make DIY durable molds using inexpensive ingredients.  In this instructable i used my adjusted sticky playdough recipe.

I am making a large boquet of cold porcelain roses and was thinking of ways to make them faster. 

There was the option of using silicone molds or plaster paris.  However, I was a bit unsure how safe silicone was to handle and plaster paris usually ends up pretty messy.

So I settled on sticky playdough. This sticky recipe picked up all the finer details from the leaves I was casting. And the resulting leaf impressions were surprisingly clear.

Step 1: Sticky Playdough Recipe

Normal playdough recipe is quite smooth and malleable. 

However with this sticky playdough recipe, what makes it great for casting is that it is so soft and will enventually dry rock hard.

Instead of a ratio of 1:1 flour and water mix, I add half a cup of extra water.

2 cups plain flour
2.5 cups water
1 tbl tartaric acid / bicarbonate soda (adds bounce)
2 tsp teatree oil / orange oil / nutmeg oil (kills bacteria and prevents mould)
1 tbl salt
1/2 cup lime (calcium carbonate hydrated)

I lowered the amount of salt in the recipe as it has a tendency to create holes when drying, but there is a smooth finish when I added lime powder for some reason. You could chuck in some crushed Calcium tablets if you don't have any lime powder at hand.

Comments

[halla]

hi, it is a good idea but if you use cold porcelain
dough or salt dough it will not take that much time
to dry
the cp will take about a day
and the salt one but it in the oven
the thinner the leaf the faster it drys

[Gomi Romi]

Thanks for that! I'm still experimenting with CPC, and its a lot harder for me than it looks. You instructables are quite helpful too!

[sparks4289]

food grade silicone is perfectly safe to handle

[zombiefire]

use han solo in carbonite toy instead of leaves and use sticky playdough for mould and once dry poor in melted chocolate

[Gomi Romi]

interesting concept, all the ingredients are safe, except too much of the ca hydrate, may cause stroke

[jtobako]

Flour/salt doughs tend to be porous (and leach salt) so the chocolate would stick (and licking it off the mold would taste nasty). The cold porcelain might work better, a vacuum former could create the same molds that you can buy at the candy store.

[Gomi Romi]

thanks for your comment, true the salt on chocolate might taste bit funny, but I'm not sure pva is safe to ingest - particular some glues made o'seas might include formelhyde not safe for those expecting. otherwise all the ingredients above are pretty safe with chocolate

[jtobako]

The trick would be pulling the chocolate off the mold.