Masonite boards are cut to size and placed on both halves of the two part mold which has been reassembled. Rubber bands hold the mold snugly in place. Using rigid boards on the outside of the mold insures that the rubber bands do not distort the rubber mold, which would cause the parts to cast incorrectly. High-quality resin is now mixed with porcelain or glass powder to fill the mold and replicate the part that it was made around.
This is my pressure chamber, an expensive but necessary and marvelous piece of equipment. Inside of it, the filled mold is placed and subjected to 60-70 PSI, which pressurizes the material inside of the mold, making it incredibly strong and dense, and crushes any air bubbles trapped inside the mold to miniscule, non-detectable sizes. The chamber helps greatly in producing flawless parts that are true to the original piece in every way. It drastically cuts down on rework and clean-up time, which saves time and money. Without this step, the sculptures would easily be twice to three times more costly because of the immense time required to clean flawed parts.
After a ride inside the pressure chamber, the piece is demolded, and a near-flawless casting is produced, which requires the vents and cup to be cut off and the small seams sanded away to become ready for the next step...
The preparation begins to mold the Dragon's legs. This mold will be a different kind of box mold, where the vertical foamcore walls are not a simple rectangular box - building a rectangular box around a piece this shape would result in a large waste of expensive silicone, so to cut down on the amount required, the mold is built in a custom shape around the dam that separates the leg into halves. The piece of equipment shown in this photo is the vacuum pump, which attaches to the vacuum chamber that degasses the silicone.
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