Quick question about wax sculpts

[Voshizle@gmail.]

I just received my Foredom waxer and some Willow wax and am about to begin a fairly large project. I'm used to working with SSculpey and was wondering of it's ok to make basically a core of sculpey to bulk it out then adding the wax onto that to actually do the detail work. My main goal is to not have to use a huge amount of wax. Thanks for any info guys.

[maddmaestro]

I brlirvr most people use the wax for detailed areas like face, hands, etc. I don't think you can use sculpey to bulk it out, but you could build the bulk in sculpey...check out Erick Sosa's mutant turtle thread there are some great tips there for working in wax. he built it up in sculpey then tranfered the entire piece to wax.

[Voshizle@gmail.]

I brlirvr most people use the wax for detailed areas like face, hands, etc. I don't think you can use sculpey to bulk it out, but you could build the bulk in sculpey...check out Erick Sosa's mutant turtle thread there are some great tips there for working in wax. he built it up in sculpey then tranfered the entire piece to wax.

Thanks man. Yea I've been watching that thread for awhile now and it's quite an amazing piece. I guess my main problem is I just don't know exactly where to start with the wax. I have a good background in armature making, but can you just use foil to bulk it out like with sculpey? I don't have any budget left at all which is why I'm kinda staying away from starting in sculpey and transferring it, not much money left for casting supplies.

[maddmaestro]

you don't need an armature at all. that is the beauty of wax.

[Voshizle@gmail.]

Well I guess what it all boils down to is where do you start?

[jarvis]

I'm doing a full wax figure, but I think next sculpt will be sculpey body with wax for head, hands, and misc. details just to speed things up as it really takes a lot longer to smooth and make changes in wax, it's more than doubled my sculpting time.

[Kdawg59]

Thanks man. Yea I've been watching that thread for awhile now and it's quite an amazing piece. I guess my main problem is I just don't know exactly where to start with the wax. I have a good background in armature making, but can you just use foil to bulk it out like with sculpey? I don't have any budget left at all which is why I'm kinda staying away from starting in sculpey and transferring it, not much money left for casting supplies.

I suppose what you can do is indeed bulk it out with Baked Sculpey. Create a much thinner version of your piece and then apply the wax after it is baked.

In essence you will be using the sculpey parts as the core like you would tin foil in a sculpey piece.

cut the piece up and dip or drip your wax onto the sculpey core you mad and then start carving...

I have done this before and it works fine... you only run into issues though if you make the sculpey too bulky to start... you can then weld the pieces together with the wax...

[Voshizle@gmail.]

Thanks again for the help guys.

Kdawg: Thanks that pretty much the answer I needed. So when you say cut the sculpey core up and you can later weld it with the wax is that purely for keying purposes? This is the first piece I've worked on that I will be casting and thus my first time keying something. I've looked at a lot of examples though so I think I'll be fine. And one last thing, is there a way to keep wax in the heated kinda putty-like state? I'm using Gary's Fuse and Zen waxes.

[Voshizle@gmail.]

Does anyone know how to keep a decent lump of wax warm? Or do you just use, say a heat gun to warm up a little blob and apply it?

[ZKULPTOR]

Does anyone know how to keep a decent lump of wax warm? Or do you just use, say a heat gun to warm up a little blob and apply it?
Hi,
Use a lamp with a 60 watt bulb, or even 100 watt bulb.... place your fuse in a ceramic plate , the heat from the lamp will keep it warm :) trust me, me and fuse go way back :) jk, I really love FUSE!

[Voshizle@gmail.]

ZKULPTOR: Thanks a million. I figured it had to be something like that. On a different forum I remember someone saying they made an insulated heat box for working with Chavant that had like a lizard heat lamp heating it. Glad to hear it's at least slightly similar.

[tony808]

Zkulptor is right... using a regular 60w(I was surprised
how hot the wax can get even with a 60w bulb) or
100w bulb will warm wax evenly. I even added a
dimmer to control how much heat to use on the wax. :thumbs2:

[Voshizle@gmail.]

I've been using a work light, not sure on the wattage but it warms it up pretty quickly. My heart as well has been stolen by Fuse, it's so fantastic. Not quite as impressed with Zen as I thought I'd be but oh well, at least now I know the flavor I like :tounge:

[Imagination Asylum]

I warm my Fuse and Zen right under a clamp worklight with a 100 watt bulb. 200 watts was toooo much, so I switched. About 10 inches over the wax, which lies on a black ceramic tile. The tile helps hold the heat, and is easy to clean. Thanks to Gary Overman for that tip!!! I have a bowl of Vapor that I also use and when I need it really soupy, I switch to the 200 watt bulb. This also works for 360 and the likes.


Rich Dufresne

[ManthingVT]

I've found an inexpensive crock pot is great for melting tooling wax also, you just shouldn't leave it on for a long time because you don't want it to "simmer"for long.