Exploring Sea Snail Trap Doors in Polymer and Silver

The Round Shells are the Sea Snail 'Trap Doors' in last week''s post
 My 'shell project' started soon after we returned home from Bahia Kino.  (see last week's post).  I wanted to make molds and see polymer and silver beads form.   I started by conditioning my polymer clay to use for the mold material.  As you can see in the photo below, one side of the shell is molded in the brown polymer and the other side (which is a more shallow mold) is in the blue polymer.  There is also one mold where I used several shells and both sides for the design.  When the polymer is baked it becomes hard and makes great molds. 

polymer molds and 2 of the shells
Polymer Beads from the Mold
The first thing I did was to use polymer to see how the details of the shells came out in the molds.  I made beads with both the shallow side and the deeper spiral side of the shells.  Both pieces are fired and a wire added for the connecting loops.  The wire extends each side of the bead and later a loop is formed for connecting.  The top and bottom of the fired polymer are joined with Kato liquid polymer and the wire remains in between the 2 layers when they are fired again.    Each bead is sanded and polished and the wire loops made and joined.  I like having the two sizes of beads and knowing each one is unique.   Please take not of the size of the beads.  Polymer does not shrink.  Using polymer  as a prototype for metal clay often lets me solve a lot of problems and answer questions economically.  Polymer is lots less expensive than metal clay.  One of my goals is to make silver beads and I need to know if the mold has a good impression and how to attach the two sides of the bead effectively.  

 
2 Polymer Buttons 'silvered' with Swellegant  Silver
Next I played with buttons in polymer.  These two buttons in the photo have a loop on the back instead of holes.  I wanted to see how Swellegant Silver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qWQRxYpoVM  would look on these buttons.  

Next week the post I'll show my silver beads from these same molds.  Be sure to check in again!  Experimenting with nature's forms is so much fun.















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