I took photos while unmolding but they're still on my camera... maybe tonight or if Joyanna naps tomorrow... LOL
Un-mold your project today or tomorrow
I took mine out about an hour ago. You know it's ready (I've been told) if you can't dent the surface with your finger but can still scratch it with your fingernail (or with a stick, since we are all going to be cautious and use gloves, right?). The 'tufa is still soft enough that I could scrape to trim or reshape. My big container's drainage hole had closed up (maybe my mix was slightly too wet?), but I took one of those cheap "(n)eversharp" knives and twirled it through to make a hole in the bottom. Be gentle -- you don't want to force anything or bang or pry, because it's still pretty fragile and prone to cracking.
I did put my items into a tub of water (garbage can, to be precise) to cure, and none of them showed the slightest sign of wanting to dissolve.
We need reports from everybody as you un-mold your troughs, mushrooms, etc! I especially want to know... Did anybody's project crack on the way home??
BTY, those mushrooms I made came out SO CUTE! You are ALL going to want to do mushrooms of your own. :^)
And definitely, everybody take pictures!! It's really hard to envision what it's going to look like when you're patting down all that concrete.
Hypertufa Party at Critter's June 23
Garbage can -- what a great idea. Though mine mostly are cracked on the bottom....
Jill, Mine did fall apart. It was definitely not thick enough, I shouldn't have tried to work inside the bag like I did. I would have done much better just working on the board and covering it up after. I also think that part of of problem was that my container that I formed over was too flexible. A more solid form would have been better. I will let you know about the other ones when we unwrap.
Jill - please don't apologize - I should've kept up with the threads...that was 'my bad' - literally. I'm excited listening to how everyone's turned out...can't wait to see pics!!!
Oh, Holly, I'm sorry! I put a garbage bag under my project also, but I had it pretty well flattened down, so it wasn't in my way when I was working. Thick is definitely the way to go... Meghan's little square pot was pretty thin toward the top, and the upper inch or so just cracked off when I picked up the pot.
Home Depot had 20 gallon storage bins on sale for $6.50 the other day... those would work well, too.
Oh, I'm looking forward to pics also. Sounds like such fun. I'll be in Oregon for the month of July. Someday I'll get to this.
Holly, Oh no!
I took mine out tonight. I peeled off the two with cardbord outsides, and sculpted the edge some
.The larger one , inside a box with styrofoam for the inner mold- The box had bulged out while pressing the stuf in so I tried to even up the wall thicknesses. I chipped at it with a piece of wood and also the wire brush. The holes had disappeared too. I'll have to redo them tomrrow. Liking it.
The hospital plastic pan one- love the shape, formed inside the pan and the walls are even.
Little box- kinda freeform in a cubic box- lookin prettty cute. That I roughed up all the corners with wire brush.
Mushroom- yeah pretty cute although mushrooms to me should be smooth on top. Jils method of molding the custom stem was super.
Garbage can- smart! Maybe a heavy plastic bag in a cracked garbage can will hold water.
Jill, I was pretty sure it wasn't going to make it even as I was putting it together. I could feel the form flexing and thought I should just stop now and find something else to use. That is when I started on the other one that I formed in the pot with the holes we will see tomorrow morning how that worked out.
If anyone hasn't unmolded yet, IMHO don't wait 48 hours. I just took mine out. We made 4 shapes. Two were a tiny bit wider than the board I put them on, and there was a little bit of crumbling as a result around the edges, but nothing I mind. The other two haven't crumbled (yet). My drainage holds had closed up, but I used the end of a grapefruit spoon and re-poked the holes.
The 2 molds with plastic bags around them came off licketly-split. One with a wide bowl as a mold came off after a bit of prying (Sally -- that was your halloween bowl). BUT I made one by putting a plastic flower pot inside another plastic flower pot. I sprayed liberally with Pam. I can't get the pots off to save my life, without damaging the hypertufa. DH and DD are out -- when they return the three of us will attack them.
So sad Holly. Robin saved me from that fate on my small bowl one and she was right; I could not have pressed on the thin bowl without the sand in it.
Glad my decrepit Halloween bowl could go down in such a martyr fashion!
We have two 'mushroom stems' in cups that we couldn't budge. Figured we'd cut the cups tomorrow.
And, yeah, no chance of getting leaf vein texture on this stuff. But I could see making a couple slightly different mixes, and making veined rock pots.
I will let you know tomorrow how my texture comes out.
I had to cut the cups off my mushroom stems also... once I started to cut, they loosened and came off (and out of the mushroom cap, as I'd left one inside the other) just fine. The (n)eversharp serrated knife did a nice job of letting me make a controlled cut through the plastic... where I cut a little scratch into the 'tufa, I just smoothed it out with my thumb.
Veined rock... hmmm... I really want to play with colorant sometime.
I'll try that...
Hooray to Jill for a fun and successful MAG workshop! I did have a few observations I'd like to share.
Once before we had done this and we had used the finer Perlite, it looked more like Jill's weed-n-feed that I started measuring out,"DUH" than the "popcorn" type we used. It gave a smoother texture to the mix, allowing more detail, and possibly more tensile strength to the dried product. I also wonder if distressing this particular mix will expose white flecks on the surface. Even if it does it should dirty up rather quickly not effecting the overall aesthetics. I'll let you know soon. Ric
I did a lot of reading up online. Some folks were recommending sifting the perlite for smaller and more uniform particle size. Others like the more rustic (read, "lumpy") effect of the kind of perlite we used. Either way, I don't think anybody suggested the strength of the mix would be affected.
I read a couple of places that using sand in the mix (1 part each of cement, sand, peat, and either perlite or vermiculite) would increase the strength of the 'tufa, but a couple of sites where people seemed to have a lot of experience said that was a fallacy, that as long as you stuck with the 2:3 ratio of cement to aggregate, it didn't matter .
I think the white flecks of the perlite are more obvious now than they will be later... the portland cement will get lighter as it dries. Maybe we should try some vermiculite next time -- different texture, not so white, may even add a little sparkle.
Ric, did your Dolly Parton planter come out well?
Excuse me? Dolly Parton planter?
Heehee, I had images in my head of that one. Anxious to see if my imagination is anywhere near reality.
I unmolded mine last night.
I did a rectangular planter from a small soft plastic dishpan/hospital pan. I put the hypertufa on the inside (vs outside) of the mold. The thickness all around (bottom and sides) was about 1 1/2". The mold came off pretty easily. I took a small putty knife between the hypertufa and the plastic pan edge, put a hard board on top, flipped it over, and lifted the pan right off.
I also did two mushrooms tops in hard plastic bowls with stems in plastic cups. The cups were inserted in the bowls to make a nice fit. Again, I put the hypertufa on the inside of the molds. It was a bit trickier to get the molds off - both tops and stems. They wouldn't budge, and I couldn't get the putty knife to slide in between the hypertufa and the hard plastic mold edges - they weren't flexible like the soft plastic pan was. I tried a utility knife/box cutter next, but the plastic was still too hard to cut thru. I ended up getting the dremel tool. On the first mushroom top, I had the depth set too high - it cut the plastic, but also cut a slight groove into the hypertufa halfway across the mushroom top. I think I can doctor it up with little bits of wet hypertufa or just get moss growing over that part. I readjusted the depth for the second top, and it worked fine.
On one of the mushrooms, the plastic stem cup wiggled right out of the bowl, and then I used a box cutter to get the cup off. On the second mushroom, I couldn't wiggle the plastic sten cup out of the bowl at all - it is still stuck there.
All three items are in plastic bins covered with water. Nothing crumbled or cracked on the way home or when getting it out of the molds. I'll have to try again tonight to do something with that second mushroom stem.
I am thrilled with the way my projects turned out - love the look, the texture.... Now that we've tackled the first experiment with this, I can't wait to try more!!!
LOL - we had a lot of fun teasing Ric about his full double rounded planter. He was really enjoying shaping and molding them and making them bigger and bigger. Leave it to critter to come up with naming it the "Dolly Parton" style planter.
Mine is out of the mold and looking pretty good. It does have some neat impressions from the open weave basket. I used some hand clippers to cut the basket to unmold. I think if I had wanted to take the time I could have softened up the plastic enough to slip it off but really didn't want to bother taking the extra time. Just too impatient.
Ric isn't up yet sleeping in very late this morning. Can't wait to see what his looks like.
Will take pics.
I managed to get the one that I did on the outside of the plastic container unmolded but the other two are being stubborn. Will work on those tonight after work.
Holly, I'm glad your basket one worked! That's what we talked about when you were making it -- that the basket wouldn't slip right off and you might have to cut it in the end, but that it would make a neat texture.
I wonder if it would help to dip (or fill, if you worked on the outside) a plastic mold into hot water to soften it and help it to release? I did have good luck with my cheap serrated knife, sawed just into the rim/edge of the container and then sort of tore the plastic down, peeling it off as I went.
The plastic bowls came off easily with a twist.
We finally got the flower pots off -- but next time I'll definitely wrap all molds in plastic bags. It didn't seem to matter whether I sprayed the plastic bags with Pam or not -- they released easily.
On some of my pots I packed the hypertufa really firmly; others not so much. The latter is a little crumbly in spots, but I'm hoping it will harden up. I prefer the look of the less-packed one -- it looks less commercial; more rustic. I just hope it holds up.
The pot I covered with a plastic bag (I think it was a plastic water garden pot Holly brought) came out more rustic also, because the bag wrinkled in places. I thought the effect was cool... like little cracks and creases in the "rock" but not deep enough to compromise the walls.
I probably should have grabbed an old grill brush or something to rough up the surface of mushrooms, but I didn't mind their (relatively) smooth surface.
I noticed that the cement had "puddled" a little at the bottom of a couple of pieces.. I'm thinking the mix might have been slightly too wet for them? I don't think it was enough to affect the ratio of cement to aggregate in the over all piece much, so hopefully it won't cause any problem.
Will you post photos of your mushrooms? I still don't follow how you made the stems so they'd fit in the caps....
Yep, just gotta get them out of the camera... I'm really pleased with how they came out. although I had doubts for a moment whether I was really going to get the 2 pieces apart! Maybe i should have let the cap & the stem set up separately LOL.
Ric and Vickie both unmolded theirs this afternoon and they both look great. Pictures will follow later.
Here are a few from the day.
"Maybe i should have let the cap & the stem set up separately LOL." That does now seem like a good idea. But it was also so darn smart to mold the 'together' to have the fit for later.
For your article may I say that the plan really worked well partywise, to get set up, then break for snacks. All your set up was great- tables, putting the dry mix into buckets for us to mix in smaller batches.
Great that we are all giving our observations too, for group learning. I brought a bucket of mix home and probably better find one more mold and use it up. There is moisture in the bag, it might start to set if i wait too long.
Great photos! I love the laughing photo with Sally & Mark. :-)
I'm glad we're reporting more successes than not... and really happy that traveling doesn't seem to be a problem for freshly molded hypertufa, despite all the cautionary posts I read!
I told somebody at work today abut the event- and that every time I see my pots for years I will remember the day
8 ^)
Me too, Sally! And thanks for your feedback on the "party format."
I'm working on the photo thing... I seem to have taken a lot of pictures since the last time I downloaded my camera! Might have to go into the study and use the "big" computer LOL
So here is Ric's planter.
First picture shows the top edge you can see what it looked like before and after it was wire brushed.
The white you see in the bottom is the Styrofoam form he used, he hasn't decided if he is going to remove it from the legs or let it in.
Sorry everyone thought it was a Dolly Parton, I was actually going for Jayne Mansfield, LOL Oh Well? :-{
Soaking them, (Hypertufa) in water will cure them to be harder and reduce the alkalinity, but you can speed up the process with a short dip in vinegar and water, it may foam a bit, that's the acid neutralizing the base, same as etching concrete with muratic acid to paint it. Ric
Ric, that turned out really nice.
Ric, that looks wonderful! No real need to take the foam out of the legs... once you've added soil, it's invisible, and it might help strengthen the base (not that any of our creations look puny).
Mushroom madness
Jane & Vicki
Safety First! Wear your gloves and have your dust mask with you at all times...
oops... photo...
Ric- VEry nice planter!!!!
Jill, excellent mushroom photos. You could do an article just with that (Focus, distinct topic, 500 words and done !!) Your shrooms are nice and smooth, from being formed inside a bowl, I like them much better than mine (formed on outside of a bowl and very rough surfaced)
Great photos and projects. The mushrooms are so cool, and not at all like I had imagined in terms of the stems. Was fun to see the Jayne Mansfield commemorative planter, too. That also was a mystery without a picture. At first glance, I thought Vicki was wearing one of those organdy nurses' caps! Keep the pictures coming.
I'm loving the photos and the informative insights about your hypertufa experiences! Excellent "Mansfield" planter and 'shrooms!!