Epoxy Putty! WOWEE!

Epoxy Putty is pretty amazing stuff. A great deal of sculptors now use it because of its "cold-curing" properties. As you might've guessed, epoxy putty is based off of epoxy (polyepoxide) composed of two parts: a thermosetting epoxide polymer and a catalyst. When mixed together they form chains. What this means is that when you mix them together you get a rock hard polymer.

Once it has cured it becomes extremely resilient forming very tenacious bonds between materials. You can actually find an ounce stick of it in most hardware stores in the plumbers' aisle because they use it as a joint compound to fix pipes and a variety of other surfaces. Modellers and Sculptors love it because its so versatile and of course the "cold-casting" properties that are unique to it.

There are several brands out on the market for sculptors. Milliput, Magic Sculpt (my favorite.) I mostly stick with bondo's aquaputty for boat repair. But its about $1.99 for a 1 oz. stick when you could just buy the magic sculpt at $30 for 5 lbs. That's only 53 cents or so for an oz. That's almost a quarter of the price so if you plan on doing lots of sculpting.. invest and save.

I want to make my own now. My experiment is going to be mixing some talc powder with some liquid epoxy and seeing what I come up with. In the long run it might even be cheaper than the Magic Sculpt and I would also be able to guage drying times and the quantity of filler. I'll let you know how it goes.

-Joey

**Update (02/14/2007 1:20pm) I tried it out recently. I bought a lbs. of baby powder which contained exclusively talc powder, but I think the powder itself wasn't a fine enough grade. It turned into an epoxy dough.. which is usable I suppose but needless to say it wouldn't hold up to high detail sculpting. I'm told wood flour or regular flour is a higher grade so I might try that out.

***Update (""2:04)
You win some, you lose some. I tried wheat flour and plaster fillers but both yielded similiar results to the talc powder. I'm closing the door on this and sticking with the trusty magic sculpt. I don't know how I expect to get costs lowere than 53 cents an oz. anyways