Ceramic Mould Making Process

In this excerpt from the march 2019 issue of ceramics monthly jackie head takes you through the plaster mold making process from making a prototype to pouring the plaster mold.

Ceramic mould making process.

While it was once thought of as cheating using ceramic molds is a technique that is increasing in popularity among potters these days. The pores in the mold create a capillary pressure because of this the water in the slip is absorbed by the mold. Not only does ceramic mold making enable you to repeat a form over and over again it also makes individual forms lose their preciousness which frees you up to experiment more. It is a combination of plaster mold casting and investment casting.

In this method ceramic particles are suspended in water an cast into porous plater molds. Ceramic mold making opens up endless potential for creative expression. Ceramic mold casting also known ambiguously as ceramic molding is a group of metal casting processes that use ceramics as the mold material. These casting processes are commonly used to make tooling especially drop forging dies but also injection molding dies die casting dies glass molds stamping dies and extrusion dies.

Milling raw material procurement the raw materials used in the process are milled materials typically found in mining sites that have been reduced from a large size to smaller sizes or even in some cases pulverized depending upon the end product. Slip casting method is used to produce complex shapes. So have a look and cross learn how to make a plaster mold for slip casting off your to do list. In order to create these end products the ceramic matter needs to go through the traditional manufacturing process which goes as follows.

From simple one piece plaster molds to more complex multi part molds plaster mold making allows the potter the freedom to experiment with ideas for form and surface because it takes away a bit of the preciousness of a one of a kind wheel thrown pot. The process i developed includes sketching using drafting software making models with mdf then making plaster molds from those models.