It worked: success! I made one excellent mold and one OK but partial mold from my recent soap carving efforts. I love Mrs. Beetle II, and I can clean and re-use my Golden Boy soap carving to make a more complete mold. I have already made a cast from each of these, along with newl casts from some earlier work.

Here you have some of today’s results, displayed with some earlier work. I set up the originals for mold making yesterday, and poured the silicone in the afternoon. The silicone sets up quickly and I was able to extract the soap carvings, pretty much intact, before dinner. I was so excited that after dinner I rubbed the molds with various pigments, then mixed up the polyurethane plastic and poured it into seven molds. I bought quick setting products, but I decided to wait until this morning to pop out the new casts.

The first casts are fine, and I am really pleased with the beetle mold and cast. I actually love that the cracks in the too dry soap are carried by the silicone, even exaggerated in the cast piece. The cracks make Mrs. Beetle II look rather venerable and distinguished. Golden Boy, with his repaired head, and the cracks, appears to be a reproduction of some ancient statue.