Update 7: Banana Skin

Banana Boat. Na, na na-na na.

After the failed attempt at printing a mould (which was never ever going to work), I decided to fall back on the initial idea of using silicon. I borrowed a wooden toy A from my neice's set of wooden alphabet letters — I asked nicely and pinky swore to give it back :)

I picked up the silicon about a year ago while working in Cremorne. The shop, Barnes suggested Banana Skin for something skin friendly. It's been in storage for a while so we'll see how it turns out.

Mixing up the 2 part silicon was easy, it's equal parts of each mixed properly. This time I had a digital scale handy and the silicon set in the specified amount of time of 90min. So going alright.

Ready to be demoulded. Pretty quickly I learned that release spray is pretty damn important. Thinking about it, I did put canola oil on the letter only with my fingers thinking I thought this all through thoroughly.

Getting the letter out was a bit tricky, as I didn't pay attention to oiling the counter... and took a good half hour slowly prying off the plastic bottle the mould was sitting in because I didn't use release spray.

The letter, the newly formed silicon mould (both similar in colour) and the hacked plastic it was all sitting in.

The cured mould.

Again pretty happy so we'll see how it holds up in the freezer. Bit of a side track project but just want to see some iced shapes.

Will the silicone freeze? Googled 'does silicon freeze' and got this back.



Thanks Google.

How long does it take to melt? Tested it. Took about 1 hour 15min (with lights). Some problematic things that weren't obvious –ice melts and moves.

Melting test.

The next time I'll be using boiled water, so hopefully there won't be as many bubbles in the ice. Will take proper photos and put it together on a site.

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Further notes:

• Get proper release spray!

• Think about the mould before casting

• Still an extruded shape so will need to start playing with complex shapes