metal mold - oven liner question? silicone anyone?

[Deb]

hi everyone

I have three fantastic metal molds. they're 2x2x2 inches, mild steel and aside from a slight oil don't need much help bar lining with parchment paper.
To clarify...its a three sided mold, bottom and two long sides, and it has two slots in w hich you put two squares of mild steel to cut it off. A wonderful armour maker locally made them for me.

I however, am not always the neatest liner, and I dislike the waste factor with the parchment paper.

So I'm looking at a longer term liner, one that won't pick up scents/can be washed.

I'm thinking I want something htat can lift out, and someone suggested oven liner to me. I have no clue what that is. (english is my second langauge, I'm sorry if this is an obvious question) or where to get it. Can you get that in canada? is it any good?

my other idea was to get liquid silicone (not teh bathroom grout stuff - its full of antifungals and chemicals) and paint a liner on the molds, that can be lifted out each time. I don't know if it'd work, but I'd like to give it a try..does anyone have any experience trying that?

Cheers
Deb

 

[Absinthe]

If you are willing to go the liquid silicone route, why not simply cast a mother mold form that one and cover it with liquid silicone and make a whole mold out of silicone. You could then either use it in whole, or possibly cut the individual cups off of it.

 

[gekko62]

Hi Deb

Kaseen posted a link to her how-to for silicone mould liners.(Lift out style)..She was making/selling them but decided not to continue,so offered the info to anyone who wanted to try for themselves(where are you Kaseen??)
I can't find her posting,but here's a link to her site which has the link.

http://www.tortugasoaps.com.au/supplise.html

Alternately I know there's a tut somewhere for doing a permanent lining with bathroom type silicone caulking,can't for the life of me think where tho.Someone else might pipe up about that.

Best of luck! :wink:

 

[MagiaDellaLuna]

Hi Deb

http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6075&highlight=

I have been using these for years. They do not retain any scent from the EO's I use and can be wiped/washed after use.

I replace the duct tape when it wears out, otherwise it is very low maintenance.

ETA
2x2x2 inches seems pretty compact. Are you making test bars in these ?

 

[Deb]

Absinthe, I'm happy to go liquid silicone, I was jus thoping for advice on types, or what is safe and what isn't..i know caulking silicone for bathrooms isn't, but i'm not sure what is? heck, I'm always happy messing with sticky stuff!

Gekko, that is exaclty the pdf I was looking for! booyah! It is not just my imagination, it did exist, and you are fantastic! (and so is Kaseen! )

MagiaDellaLuna, in reverse order..yep, 2x2x2..I know it seems compact, but believe it or not its double the size the other soap seller sells..2x1x1! A nd I find my customers seem to like it better than the 3x2 format so i figure why argue with the custome ;-) and it still weighs in at around 6 ounces a bar so they still get the same volume, just in a different shape. Do you pour at thick trace? How does the duct tape hold up with the lye?

 

[Absinthe]

Actually don't rule caulking out completely just yet. I am in the research phase of it. There is talk on some of the casting and molding boards about how to use it as such.

In theory the 100% silicone ones can be manipulated to work like similar 2 part ones. The idea is that you mix a little glycerin and some acrylic paint into it and mix it good until the color is consistent and it can be used as a fairly good mold medium. The lovely smell that you get while it is working is acetic acid which last I remember was vinegar, and the reason you smell it is that while it is in there it keeps it liquid so when it is solid and cured it should be all gone. The second way to play with this particular stuff (100% silicone caulk) is to squirt it into a bucket of water with perhaps some dish detergent and knead it a little to work the acetic acid out of it and then it molds like silly putty, where you essentially stretch it over and work it into your model. In all cases they highly suggest using a release agent, specifically something other than silicone One other thing is that you can thin it with xylene but they say it makes it more likely to tear later and takes way longer to cure.

In addition to that, there is one that has silicone and acrylic in it. On the label it claims to be "easy cleanup with water." Some people are using this by thinning it to a pourable consistency with water. They can then pour or brush it on models and make the mold from there.

All this said, I just read an article on one of these soap boards, where someone used caulk and a plastic spreader to coat the inside of their box mold, and claim the soap just jumps right out of there.

http://www.thedishforum.com/forum/index ... l=tutorial

Anyway, I am not sure whether this would be legally "food safe" and I would want to be sure that the mold was fully cured before using it, but silicone is inert, and if the only other chemical involved is acetic acid I don't see what kind of problems there would be.

One thing to note, is that silicone does not tolerate sulfur. I am not sure what effect this would have but, I know certain veggies (cruciferus ones mostly) and eggs contain a fair amount of it. However, that would seem to be the same problem for all silicone molds.

I will be trying the water wash one this weekend. I will make a small box mold (1 lb) and pouring it in and swishing it around to see if I can get it to coat instead of trying to "butter" in on with a pallet knife. But if that does not work I will try the 100% silicone and see how that goes.

 

[Deb]

thanks for the warning on sulpher..its not something i"d used yet but i'll definitely avoid on my silicone! and thank you for the link - i'll do some investigating.

Come to think of it..some of my 'put together' type molds could very well be caulking silicone for all I know. I know I have a couple that are square blocks that obviously had something in them types.

And yes, acetic acid is vinegar, however, the vinegar we get is usually diluted down to 5% ..the legal minimum at which they can sell it as vinegar. home made vinegar is usually around 20% acetic acid and a wee bit strong (I have a vinegar mother and regularly make it for cleaning, wine vinegar for salads, the like.)

I thought bathroom sealant had antifungal stuff in it though? as a friend of mine refuses to use it on his aquarium for risk to the fishies?

 

[Absinthe]

You have to read the labels. The one by GE is pure 100% silicone. Others will have other things in them, but they will say so. It will say "inhibits fungal growth" or prevents "mold and mildue" and crap like that. No reason to put something in there and not use it for a sales pitch.

Here is one article on how to do it

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/loa ... 22593.html

Here are some more:

http://www.cosplay.com/archive/index.php/t-99259.html
http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/forums/s ... hp?t=32515
http://www.myheap.com/book/chapter-07/s ... kmolds.php

You will see that the pro's all says stuff like "Save that for windows, and spend the money on the $100 a gallon stuff and it will save you in the long run... "

I usually dismiss many of these suggestions because these are people that are doing what they do for the money of it and can justify materials over time because they charge by the hour

I would certainly accept that they may not be as high a quality as ones made with professional (read more expensive) materials and may have to be remade more often (all molds wear out eventually) But we are also talking about professionals that are casting concrete and stuff like that. I am sure this may be just fine for the stresses that soap puts on them. But that is just my opinion.

 

[Deb]

hey, opinions are exactly what I wanted and asked for!

So this is awesome and so are the links. I'll plow through them this weekend when i'm not 'on the clock' so to speak - this is a longer term project anyway.

So t hank you again ;-)

 

[Absinthe]

It will be fun to compare notes, I doubt my mold will be ready to use this weekend, but it is looking more and more like it will be a woodworking weekend or perhaps an essential oil weekend.

I am in the process of setting up a still for steam distillation but my permit isn't through yet and I am itching to finish it but if I connect the boiler to the condenser I am officially breaking the law. I should not be in such a hurry because even if I finish it I don't really have any biomass anyway...