Making at the DnA Factory

I have spent the last few days back at the DnA factory making new moulds, casting some new designs and casting ivory and black of old designs.

To explain I do all the casting of my work at the DnA Factory in Herne Hill. My friends Angel De Mon and Dalls Does are artists who create together as the DnA factoy making stunning sculptures and other art work.

http://www.thednafactory.com/

 This is the view from the entrance, my little corner that is so vital to my project and sanity is on the left.

Their arch "The DnA factory" is in the wild lawless fringes of South London. When I started this project Dallas taught me all he knew about casting, and set me up with a bench in the corner of their world. Since then they have welcomed me and I so love working there in such a creative environment. The arch is like some Alice in wonderland world of parts of sculptures, toys, manikins and weird objects. They have draws labelled "eyes" and  "hands" ! ! ! ! 

Here Dal is pouring the rubber part of a mold to make the arms for this fantastic new character.

They are gonna make a couple of these characters, one black and one white, she/he/whatever? looks like a character from 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell, she is very much work in progress and is changing day by day, she is the figure in the background on the left.

Dallas doing some quality arse work, a speciality. Angel was hiding doing some digital work, coming out every now and then to do some hands on stuff and talk things through with Dal.

Here is the wolf finished, the red in his mouse is electrical tape glued onto the inside of the teeth, this makes the inside of the mouth a tube, so I can mould it simply, then when cast I cut out the resin that is cast into the red part of the master. This is a one part mold. The grey block of clay the wolf is sitting on is going to be a reservoir.

Here I am building a perpex box to cast the rubber into, glue gunned together. The box is very high so that the rubber can expand when being degassed. I use a very soft dental rubber.

 I mix the rubber with its catalyst and then pour it into the casting box. I turn on the pump and push down the clear perspex  lid so that it makes a seal with the black gasket. Then all the air is pumped out by the pump, that is the machine underneath the chamber. The bluey green blocks are some of my moulds.

I do not normally do the pouring in the chamber, but the casting box was pretty large. 

When the chamber gets to vacuum all the trapped air expands and froths out of the rubber, the rubber swells up to up to 4 or 5 times its volume, when all the air leaves the rubber it drops down in volume again. The reason this picture is blurred is that the vacuum pump is pumping and vibrating. Then one leaves the rubber to cure for a few days. Take the box apart, remove the master, turn it upside down and its ready to use. 

The process for casting with the resin is pretty similar.

Here are some moulds full of natural coloured polyurethane resin which is curing-hardening. From left to right:

Cobra mould (2 part), 

Wolf (one part, but with 2 slits and a bung to make the inside of the head hollow). 

Small hands, (slit mould). 

Octopus (2 part).

All these moulds have reservoirs so that the resin can expand when being degassed, in the octopus mould one can see all the channels where so that the air can escape. The moulds are held together with brown parcel tape.