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Posted by Toby Wahlers on 26th Apr 2022
Thank you Toby for sharing your trials and experiments with ComposiMold to make a replacement sconce. The following description is the process used by Toby to replace a 1960's light fixture. You'll see that this took many experimentations and he re-melted and re-made the ComposiMold mold multiple times. Here's what he writes...
The procedure:
The saga:
One of my sconces was broken in half. They are circa 1960. I did not want to put in a non-matching sconce or replace 7 sconces, so I made a new one.
Some of the pain would have been lessened by making a better mold.
Used old plastic trash basket. Created an inner wall to save on mold material.
Made an upper wall, again to save on mold material. Used an existing good sconce to create the mold.
Big bowl of mold gel. Was not sure how much I’d need. I needed all of it, and more.
Changed to using silicone to hold the walls in place, heated the mold gel in a microwave, poured it in.
Mold cooled.
Cut out the sconce by removing the back. I probably should have left a little flap in place. Registration, i.e. alignment, is important.
Tried ComposiStone (faux pottery stuff (Smooth Plaster/Cement.) Does not work well with thin-walled sconce.
Switched to using heat-resistant epoxy. Note my sophisticated jig.
Initial result.
Cleaned it up a bit.
But there were issues. Supporting the sconce at the edges during the molding process was problematic, also it was difficult to precisely position the back of the mold into the front.
Side had issues too.
Created a new mold (the stuff is reusable.) This time I supported the sconce in the middle with a little box.
Added mold material to the bottom. (still an issue at the bottom, I had to do it again).
The side still needed work. (I did it again).
Eventually I got a good (enough) casting. I had to do a lot of sanding to incorporate the extra material, smooth things out. I used a palm sander. I used a Dremel for the bulb and outlet holes, drilled out the screw holes.
What I got was a fairly clean but matte sconce. I wanted glossy. So I did a “pour-over” technique, spreading with an artists brush. It worked well, just left drips on the bottom edge to be sanded.
Mounted it on the wall.
Closer. The back edge is caulked so slightly irregular.