The expandable mold rubber is still expanding, now about 6-3/8″ from 4-3/4″ and still going. Hopefully it will level and even out soon once it’s fully saturated all the way to it’s center. I figured it’s 160% expansion Aug 4th The little expanding rubber lion looks like he has expanded about as much as it’s going to, some distortion evident on the sides but fairly easy to fix along with a few defects, so I’ making a quick and dirty plaster mold of it to press clay into and I’ll use that clay pressing as a model to work on, square up, refine and get a mold off that while…

A little more cleanup on her and she can sit around air drying for the next 4 weeks before firing in the kiln Aug 13th Getting ready to fire my Nr 294 keystone, she weighs 30# dry and has been drying for almost 3 weeks since I pressed her, so I’m going to wait until Friday to turn the kiln on, meanwhile I have her set up in the kiln ready to go. I can only fit one piece this size in my kiln, another dry panel I have ready to fire won’t fit in with this too. I have my full shelf on the floor raised off the floor…

The first pressing of the 294 keystone is out of the mold now and covered with plastic wrap so I can mess with cleaning her up to-morrow. It took almost 50# of clay.

I did some more work on the West side highway model. It has plastic behind it and it’s covered with plastic when not being worked on so it keeps the moisture in as much as possible so it doesn’t dry too fast. Even with spritzing it with water and covering it with plastic the clay still dries out, just slower, so the working time window is somewhat short, but as the clay goes from really soft to firming up, various stages in the modelling process can be done. Roughing out is done first, leaving more clay than needed so it’s mostly removing clay instead of adding on, and then as…

The 2 gallons of Vytaflex came today so I mixed it up and filled th 294 mold with it, the 2 gallons wasn’t quite anough to completely fill the mold, but as long as all the detail is covered it won’t matter as I have to add a 3-1/2″ deep plaster backer to the rubber when it’s cured anyway. Now it will need to sit and cure overnight before it can be removed from the mold. The rubber positive with it’s new plaster backing block is out of the mold, now the keystone is approximately the same depth the original 1895 sculpture was before I made a shallow mold of…

I found some time to do a little work on this West Side Highway model. The screw heads are just the right size for the rivets and much easier to use than hand forming every one of them by hand in the clay. The slots in the screws will get filled in before the panel is molded. I also roughed out the first eagle head a little bit. I also just ordered another 2 gallon kit of the rubber I need to cast a positive in the new mold for the 294 girl keystone, so next Friday I should be able to cast her, it will take the whole 2…

The kiln shut off during the night and by afternoon it was cooled down enough to open the lid and after a bit- remove the two pieces with gloved hands, the 137 came out great, it weighs 25#

I decided to put the first set of two clay sculptures in the kiln now, with the 137 grotesque on the bottom resting on it’s top, and with the shelf furniture I had to stack some posts to get the height above the sculpture so the shelf can be laid on top of them and not touch it. Once the shelf was in, 22-D was laid on her back on some posts to let the heat and air circulate inside from underneath- ditto for the 137 on the bottom which was raised up so it’s top gets the full heat and red color evens out over the whole piece. Pretty…

I now have 3 of the 137’s and 2 of the 22-D’s in pressed red terracotta almost dry, I think I’ll fire one of each in two weeks they should just fit the kiln together, and then repeat the same loading of two each weekend until they are all done. I still want to make one more of the little 22-D keystones so she can go in with the third 137 and I can get two pieces done together for the same cost. Think I’ll do the 22-D to-morrow so it can start drying out. Those 137’s are pretty thick and weigh 30# each.

I decided this stunning keystone- a cast I made of the original 1895 one I had years ago, is small enough it can be done in pressed terracotta too, but I have to make a new mold of her first, as the old rubber mold I have which was made with a brand of silicone rubber I stopped buying a decade ago when it started tearing real easily is pretty well on it’s last leg, one more cast out of that and I’m sure by now just removing the rubber from the cast will just tear into pieces. So I need a new mold, and then I’ll need to make…