Ruth Ballou on thu 23 jun 05
After a Keystone Kops kinda day in the studio, in which one of the
unsuccessful endeavors involved attempting to whack off a finger tip
with a hand blender, I sat down to review another of the day's
irritants: a garbage can full of ruined plaster. I had gotten
distracted during the calculation part and ended up with way too much
plaster to water. There has got to be a better way to figure this
out, I thought, using the metric system. I searched clayart, and my
books. Suddenly a light bulb went on. Figure out the volume of the
item by filling it with water, or by using displacement, if it is an
object that can't be filled, and then measure the water in a metric
container, i.e. in milliliters. Since one milliliter weighs one gram,
this IS the weight of the plaster in grams required for the object.
Multiply that number by the desired percentage of water, 75% being
what has typically been recommended on clayart in the past. Hamer and
Hamer has a wonderful chart for proportions of water to plaster,
depending on the type of mold being made. I tried out my theory
yesterday and it worked like a charm!
If there's anything wrong with this thinking, I'd appreciate the
comments of those with more plaster mixing experience.
Ruth Ballou
Belgium
Has anyone ever heard of someone doing something smart and getting
injured? No, we're all doing something extremely stupid.
Conveniently, a friend who is an Occupational Medicine Specialist was
visiting. She immediately went into doctor mode, ascertained that
reattachment and even stitches were unnecessary. Fresh out of
appropriate bandaging supplies, she made do with scrounged band
aids, gauze and red electrician's tape. Lovely!
Leanne Juliana on mon 27 jun 05
They also have a ruler that tells you how much plaster to water ratio to
mix. I know it comes with the book- Mold Making for Ceramics by Frith....
It's a wonderful little gadget. There's also the 13 seconds method that
seems to work pretty well. Dump the plaster in the water until the mound in the
middle takes about 13 seconds to dissolve, add one more handful and mix. That's
my favorite method...
| |
|
