Now it’s time to make the magnets. Finally! It has taken a lot of preparation to get here, but now that the molds are made, I can get into production mode.

	The first thing I have to do is roll out a slab of clay. I do that with my handy-dandy Brent SRC Mini slab roller that I recently acquired.
	See how nice the slab turned out? It sure beats using a rolling pin! Let me tell ya. I did that for too many years.
	Since the clay gets rolled out between two pieces of canvas, it’s heavily textured. I use a specialized tool, in this case an old hotel key card that I found in my purse, to smooth out the surface. I don’t always smooth the surface when making things out of clay slabs, but it’s necessary for this application.
	I cut the slab to the approximate size that I want to press into the mold.
	As the name “press mold” implies, the clay has to be pressed into it. That’s what I’m doing here. I press firmly yet gently, and straight down. If I put sideways pressure on the clay, it shifts in the mold and I end up with a double impression. That’s not good.
	I want a smooth back on the magnet, so I use another specialized tool to cut the excess clay off the mold. Note that I start the cut from the center - this prevents the clay from shifting in the mold. I do two cuts - from the center to each end.
Funny how I’ve learned over the years that everyday gadgets make some of the best clay tools. If I ever come to visit at your house, don’t let me into your kitchen gadget drawer. You’ve had fair warning!
	Final smoothing is done with a wet sponge.
	The plaster pulls moisture out of the clay, causing it to shrink. When I see a gap between the edge of the clay and the mold, I know it’s ready to release. You can see the gap in this photo. Here, I’m stamping my signature into the piece before removing it from the mold.
	Turning it upside down drops the piece out of the mold. I trim the edges and smooth them with a sponge, then put it under loose plastic to dry.

The next post will show the final steps taken in making these fridge magnets.

This post demonstrates how the plaster press molds were made for the fridge magnets that were started in the last post. When we left off, I had just finished making the models that I wanted to mold.

	First things first. I stuck the models that I wanted to mold to a piece of plastic coated MDF. Then, I rolled out some clay coils and flattened them with a small roller. These were wrapped around the models to form walls, leaving about 1/2″ of space between the model and the coil walls.
Note that the board is wet where I’m sticking the coils down. Pressing the flattened coils onto the wet board gave a nice, firm seal to prevent plaster from leaking out the bottom.The clay was left to firm up for about an hour.
	Mixing the plaster. The plaster powder was added to the water and allowed to sit for about 15 minutes, then gently stirred by hand until it was the consistency of thick cream. Mmmm… yummy.
I don’t have the picture here, but as I’ve said before - successful plaster work requires preparation! I had my plaster cleanup bucket, a plastic-bag lined container, and sponge right there, for a quick cleanup after pouring.
	The plaster was gently poured into the casting forms. Pouring gently helps prevent annoying and evil air bubbles from forming on the surface of the mold.
Next - a fast cleanup! I had my plaster wash bucket on the table and when the pouring was finished, everything was cleaned up right away. It doesn’t take long for plaster to set up and ruin your stuff, so be prepared!
	The molds were allowed to set up for about an hour.
	Once set up, the clay forms were removed from around the plaster molds. It was as simple as pulling the coils off the edges, and gently knocking the molds to loosen them from the board.
	Here’s the mold turned over. You can see that the mold is the reverse impression of the model that was carved in the last post.
	I used a rasp to clean up the edges, then sponged the mold out with clean water.
	The molds will be completely dry and ready to use in about 24 hours.

In the next post, I’ll demonstrate using the press molds to make the magnets.

A while back, some friends and local business owners asked if I could make some fridge magnets with their store logo on it. We talked about a few ideas, then I went to work. My next few posts will detail the steps that I took to make these custom creations.

The first step in the process was to make a plaster press mold for each magnet design. This required making one of each design for casting.

I had to figure out the size for the fridge magnets. I resized the logo graphic on the computer until it looked good, then printed it out. I rolled out a thin slab of clay and let it sit out and firm up for a while. Then, I placed the logo onto the clay and used a ball-point needle tool to impress the outlines of the logo onto the clay. The next step was to gently start carving, leaving the logo raised. I concentrated on the main letters and flower on the logo in the beginning.

Once the rough carving was finished, I went back over the piece to smooth out the high spots. Then I cleaned up and softened the edges with a sponge.

Next, the finer parts of the design were needed. Vines, leaves and lettering were added with a syringe fitted with a fine tip. The additions were sharpened with a carving tool, and the cast was finished.

I also made a couple of simpler designs with daisies and the business name in freehand. The daisies came from the sprig molds that I made a while back, in this post.

In the next post, I’ll demonstrate pouring the plaster and casting the molds for the magnets.

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to pour some plaster molds to make square rice bowls. I found a really cool square bowl in the after-Christmas sales and thought, “Hmm. That would make a great rice bowl,” so I picked one up and brought it home. I spent a couple of days making the molds and documenting the process in pictures, and here it is!

	First, I gathered the supplies. This is very important because once the plaster is mixed, there is no going back! It will set up while I’m searching for things. Here you see the bottom and side boards (called casting boards) for the mold, clamps, the square bowl, clay, buckets, mold soap (really Murphy’s Oil Soap), and a paintbrush.
	I clamped the casting boards together using the square bowl as a guide. I left about 1.25 inches of space around the bowl.
	The next step was to seal the corners of the mold. I pressed coils of clay into the side and bottom corners. Without this seal, plaster leaks out of the mold and makes a huge mess. I’m wearing latex gloves here because experience has taught me that plaster destroys my hands. It sucks all the moisture out and leaves them dry and cracked.
	After all of the corners were sealed, I applied mold soap to the casting boards. This makes for an easy release of the boards when the plaster has set up. No need to soap the bottom board since it’s formica and the non-porous surface will release from the plaster easily.
	See the writing on the plaster bag? It says breathing plaster is BAD FOR YOU. That stuff settles into your lungs and doesn’t come out. Same with powdered clay particles. That’s why it is important to have the right type of particle filtration mask. I wear it anytime I’m messing with the plaster bag or pouring dry plaster into the bucket for mixing.
	The dry plaster was added to water, then mixed by hand until it reached the consistency of thick cream. I mixed slowly to try to avoid bubbles. The bubbles that you can see on the top of the bucket were scraped off and dumped in the trash.*
	Next, the plaster was carefully poured into the mold. I use a smaller container to scoop and pour the plaster, and pour it over my hand to try to reduce bubbles. Once I had filled the mold, I set the bowl into it at an angle and bounced it up and down gently. Again, this was to try to get any big air bubbles to rise to the top.
	I weighed the bowl down until the top was at the level of the plaster. I let it sit for 40 minutes or so, then removed the bowl and the boards. Plaster gets hot while curing, so I wait until I feel it starting to cool down before I remove the casting boards.
	The mold after the boards and bowl have been removed. It’s ready to be cleaned up and set on a rack to dry.
	I use a fettling knife to knock off all of the sharp edges. A word of warning - don’t leave damp plaster on your tools! It will set up hard as a rock and is hard to clean off. Speaking from experience here. The final cleanup was a wipe-down with a damp sponge.

One step I didn’t photograph was the cleanup. I have a small bucket with a plastic bag liner and as soon as I poured the plaster, I scraped the rest of it into that trash bucket. Then I gave my mixing bucket a quick wipe with a sopping wet sponge and poured that water into the trash bucket too. If you let the mixing bucket sit, the plaster will set up and be impossible to remove. The key is to have everything set up and to work fast.

*NEVER pour plaster or plaster water down the sink drain!! You’ll be sorry. And you’ll have an expensive plumber bill.

Altogether I made three molds and am happy with two of them. They’ll need to dry for a couple of days, then I’ll make some bowls and post the results right here. Stay tuned!

In my last post, I mentioned using cardboard tubes as curved molds for slabs of clay. Here’s an example of a vase I made using this technique. I rolled out slabs of clay, then laid them into the half-tubes. Once the clay was stiff enough, I took it out of the tubes to work with it. I found the cardboard tubes to be problematic, though, because the moisture from the clay caused them to lose some curve. So today I decided to make some plaster hump molds. Hump molds are designed to lay slabs of clay over, as opposed to slump molds which allow you to slump a slab of clay inside.

First, I laid slabs of clay into the tubes. Then I put more slabs at the ends and sealed up the cracks with coils of clay, then smoothed it all out to make a nice surface for the plaster. I let those sit until the clay was a little past leather hard, not dry yet, but not quite pliable.

Then I assembled all of the materials I needed. Everything must be within reach when working with plaster. It starts to set quickly so I didn’t want to mix it until I was ready. I measured the water and weighed the plaster - two gallons of water, 22 pounds, 13 ounces of plaster. Then I mixed the plaster and poured it into the molds. Here is a picture of the large mold, then the measured water and plaster, and the molds once the plaster was poured:

Here they are after setting up and being removed from the molds. At this point they are still pretty wet, and have some clay residue left on them. I’ll sponge them off and allow them to dry for a couple of days before I use them.
The finished products were one large and two small half-round molds and a tile mold. One great advantage of using a plaster hump mold is that a slab of clay will dry much faster than another material. The plaster actually pulls water out of the clay. These molds will cut the waiting time down when making handbuilt items.