Newbie makes a silicone brick!

[blacksmithn]

Greetings. I'm a complete novice at mold making and casting and I have managed to make a bunch of mistakes in my initial try. It's been rather a comedy of errors, in fact, including the burning of not one, not two, but three fingers with hot glue while putting the form together. I made a two part mold with RTV silicone. The bottom part went great. The top, however, not so good. Suffering from the excruciating pain of my aforesaid fingers (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) I managed to mix and pour the top portion of the RTV and only realized afterwards that I'd forgotten to treat the bottom with any mold release! Is there any way to get these two halves apart, short of major surgery? Or am I stuck (no pun intended) with a silicone brick as a reward for my bungled first effort? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

[follox]

Oh bum... I suppose it will depend on the complexity of the shape but I guess you're going to have to try and cut along the line that would have been your dividing point

Best of luck.

[mangozac]

Sorry but you're got yourself a solid silicone brick there. Silicone won't bond well to anything other than more silicone, to which it bonds perfectly! See if you can turn it into a single part split mould by cutting carefully, that way you won't waste all of the silicone...

[Blindhorizon]

If you can't save the mold you can also grind up the old mold or cut it into small pieces and added it in small parts to new mixings of silicone.

[blacksmithn]

Surprisingly, at least to me, I was able to cut carefully along the joint where the two mold halves meet and once I had a finger hold I managed to separate the two halves! The mold looks to my untrained eye to be perfectly usable. i love a happy ending!

[follox]

Awesome, that's great news!

[mangozac]

That's interesting. I wonder what caused it to come apart so easily? As I said earlier, silicone usually bonds to itself very well! Glad to hear it worked out though

[Fleafa]