I had some hard wood scraps laying around in my garage so today I cut out a square, drilled a couple holes, and fashioned a nice stand for the mannequin. Silicone and resin arrived today so I opened up the air dry clay and built a platform on top of the foam core for the femur part to set on. I spent some time trying to get the clay butted up against the edge of the part as best I could. I used a steel ball to make indentations in the clay so that after the two halves are poured they’ll mate up very nicely. I used hot glue to seal up the foam core walls. Then I mixed up a batch of silicone according to my math calculation, ran it through the vacuum chamber, then poured it over the part. The walls held, everything went smooth, and it was the exact amount of silicone – yay math!
Cure time on this stuff is 5 hours so I’ll take it apart around 11pm tonight and pour side two. I’ve heard horror stories of some clay types preventing the silicone from curing. I hope the clay I used isn’t one of them. I guess I’ll know in a few hours.
I’ve also decided to sculpt a new skull. I rushed the first one and the face proportions aren’t very accurate.
