Making silicone moulds

With V-sure's materials, it is very easy to make a cast of a body.

Would you like to make an impression of your hand, face or torso? Or would you like to immortalise the feet of your child? With V-Sure's Alginate you can make a cast of the body quickly and safely. The alginate used in our products is completely safe to use and harmless. You can even use it to make impressions of a newborn baby's hand or foot.

Alginate is a powder that you need to process with plain water. This creates a quick-drying pouring or splashing mass that you can apply directly to the skin. Within a few minutes, the alginate will react and turn into a soft kind of rubber.

The mould you have made in this way can now be poured with a plaster-like resin such as Zellaan to make a detailed impression of the body part.

Follow our 4 step plan for making rubber moulds directly on the skin, for example of a pregnant belly or face, with Alginate. 

• STEP 1:
  Make sure the model you wish to cast is lying or standing in the correct position. Protect the eyelashes, eyebrows, moustache, beard and other hair with a thin layer of vaseline. If you want to make an impression of a head or face, have the person put on a latex bathing cap and tuck all head hairs under it. Alginate is a natural product and is completely harmless to the skin. It does not shrink during the gelling process, but will do so later when it dries out. Inform the model that the total duration of this procedure will be at least 30 minutes.

• STEP 2:
  Take 100 gr alginate powder and mix it with 200 (to 300 gr) water. Always mix the powder into the water, not the other way around! Stir vigorously with a kitchen whisk or mixer. Try to avoid air bubbles. Mix until no lumps are visible. Apply the mixture to the model within 10 minutes. If you have too little, you can always continue to create and work on the previous layer. However, this should always be done within 10 minutes.

• STEP 3:
  Apply the mixture evenly in a minimum layer thickness of about 1 cm. Finish the whole surface in one go. Try to avoid air bubbles during application and use a spatula to smoothen the mass. Once the mixture has been sufficiently gelled, you can start applying the supporting template.

• STEP 4:
  It is best to reinforce this with pre-treated plaster tape. Leave the alginate on the substrate the whole time and only remove it when the support mould has hardened in plaster.

• STEP 5:
  After the mould and the supporting mould have been removed from the model, a first impression should be cast in a water-compatible material as soon as possible. Ordinary casting plaster or zellane are available here. Polyester, epoxy, etc. are not suitable as casting resin at this stage.

CAUTION! You can only cast a few times in the alginate mould. The mould will soon dry out and become brittle.

Liquid latex is mainly used to make simple and cheap rubber moulds. At V-sure we recommend the one-component liquid natural rubber Eco latex. This easy-to-process rubber mould gives an elastic rubber layer into which you can pour almost any product. If desired, you can thicken the liquid latex with a thickener to obtain the desired layer thickness even faster.

Applications of liquid latex

Liquid latex is mainly used in the artistic sector. Applications are endless and surpass all creativity. Think for example of making scary masks for Halloween, but also casting sculptures and making moulds are possible. Do not use liquid latex if you:

• Are allergic to ammonia, sulphur and/or latex.

• Have hypersensitive or damaged skin.

Here we recommend the Latex thickener. After adding this thickener, the Latex moulding rubber becomes thicker (thixotroper) and can be spread or brushed to achieve the desired layer thickness more quickly.

It is best to keep your mould in a dark place and certainly not in direct sunlight. This will cause the latex rubber to become brittle and discoloured.

With a fast-drying, thinly liquid, 2-component casting rubber for the manufacture of highly elastic rubber moulds which must be styrene-resistant for a hobbyist. We recommend Silicone Blue Fast here.

With a liquid, tough elastic casting rubber for casting lead and tin that is temperature resistant up to 250°C. Here we recommend Hightemp Silicone.

We recommend that you use the silicone pigments. These are special colouring agents for colouring silicone rubbers.

Here we recommend the extremely flexible and tear-resistant moulding rubber type silicone transparent. Thanks to its transparency, this silicone rubber can be cut where you wish to obtain a partial seam after casting a block mould. Furthermore, this colourless silicone can also be coloured using silicone colour pigments to make elastic moulds.

Here we recommend using Alginate, a natural elastic rubber for the manufacture of one-off moulds. This allows you to make moulds quickly and directly on the skin. And then pour in plaster or Zellaan to make the mould.