Krylon crystal clear ruins detail of sculpt... skip it?

Paul Bailey

In Rob Freitas' tutorial he says cc takes a lot of detail away from appliance sculpts, so he just uses frecote lift in epoxy molds. I trust him but I'm about to make a two piece epoxy mold of a full head mask sculpt. I was gonna do a dusting of crystal clear followed by ease release, thinking I need the strength of the cc when I build my wall. My core is epoxy and mold will be epoxy. Will frecote all by itself be a better option? I'd like to preserve as much detail as possible. 

Chris Ellerby

How the release agent works will depend on what clay your sculpt is in, and the size/shape/texture of your sculpt.    Technically speaking you can get away with no mold release, but cleaning out the mold would be quite the chore.  Frekote would work just fine.   Krylon Crystal Clear can subdue your details a bit, like any mold release.  It just depends on how much you apply.

/Chris 

Blake Bradley

If you're working with an oil or wax clay you can skip, I don't even seal mine. I'd say the only time it's really worth Clystal clear is if your making a stone mould of a water based clay sculpt. The stone will suck the moisture out of the clay if not sealedand. Cleaning out a stone mould is hard and risky. Just give it 2 or 3 coats of mold release if it's a water based clay. If any sticks just clean it out with water. This is just my own personal option.

Blake Bradley

I havnt used grecote lift, I normally but by spray release from a local second hand art store in town so it tends to be whatever they have.

Paul Bailey

Well I didn't intend to skip mold release all together just the krylon stage. I think I'm doing a light amount of cc followed by either ease release 200 or frecote lift

Paul Bailey

Thanks Blake. Do have any opinion on frecote lift vs ease release 200?

Paul Bailey

Just in case anyone else was wondering I've used both now... and in my experience frecote lift did a much better job releasing oil based clay from an epoxy mold. Ymmv!