“Pushing” the Limits of PowerMold with Shapelock

In our quest for new and interesting casting materials we have found another to use with PowerMold:

 Shapelock is a plastic that becomes putty-like when melted in hot water and becomes rigid at Room Temperature. It is similar to InstaMorph and several others made from polycaprolactone plastic. It turns clear when it is in rubbery form and cools to a white slippery, hard, plastic.

So the question to answer: PowerMold works great as a push mold for clays, but can PowerMold be used to make push molds with Shapelock while at 160 F? And since we are reporting it, (spoiler alert) the answer is, yes.

Shapelock molded with PowerMold

 Thank you to Steve at Eepy Bird for making us aware of Shapelock. He saw it at the Maker Show in New York last year.

 The process:

Make your mold from PowerMold by melting in the microwave and pouring over your part you are duplicating. Start with a simple 1-part mold, but you could make more complicated molds by pressing two halves together.

 The mold must be hard to be able to push the Shapelock into the mold. To make the mold stiffer and to allow the PowerMold to handle the temperatures of the hot Shapelock, place the PowerMold in the freezer for a while.

 Push the melted Shapelock into your mold cavity and fill the voids.

Push the casting material into the PowerMold mold

Press the Shapelock into all the crevices while still hot

That’s it. You don’t need a mold release to make the castings.  Since both PowerMold and Shapelock are reusable, you can melt and remelt the PowerMold and the Shapelock to make a variety of shapes.

Shapelock molded with PowerMold

That’s a cool (or hot) ice cream.

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