Okay so we poured the resin and start the clock. it generally takes 5 min for the resin to harden enough for the hold to be taken out of the mold. i have heard though i dont know it to be true, that the resin will continue to harden over the next 24hours. if thats true i would avoid climbing on them for a day. but at the same time i have climbed on holds ive poured within a couple of hours out of the mold. regardless, the first 5 min is pretty cool to watch. check out what happens!
the liquid gets kinda hazy, then become more opaque.... pretty cool right?
and after 5 min the holds are completely solid! this is my favorite part, all that work; the shaping of the design, building & setting the molding box, pouring the silicone rubber and then cleaning & prepping the mold until finally one clean pour and you get to find out if you just made an awesome hold of an expensive piece of ass! dont worry ive had both happen, but at worst a crappy hold will make a foot hold... albeit a crappy foot hold.
so you want to be somewhere between gentle and forceful when removing your new hold. start at the outside edges and peel the rubber mold away. the rubber stretches which helps in the removal just dont take it too far because you can tear the mold. now there are also things you can do to make your demolding easier when you initially set up your mold box. first just pay good attention to the orientation of the foam original when you glue it down. because in-cut edges are the hardest part to remove from the mold and you should attempt to loosen the rest of the hold first. also when you glue the foam originals down try to position them in such a way that the in-cut are toward the center of the mold and the shallow areas, that are easier to demold, are oriented to the outside edges. this will ease your removal of the hold and it will increase the overall lifespan of your mold. the less you tug and stretch your mold the longer it will last, so plan ahead.
this is the final product. and the answer to the question? you decide... but i think they turned out pretty cool. i like the two crimps on the far right and the big juggy on at the top the best! after i stopped taking pictures i poured the two remaining holds. and i was rather happy with them as well. the one thing i would suggest is start simple. the first couple of detailed designs i made were over the top.
but were not quite done with these holds yet, check it out.
no matter what the holds always need to be finished. a simple sanding does the trick. hopefully you have access to a belt sander. just plain the hold down till its level and smooth. all of this will take time to refine the technique, so dont get too frustrated if it's not perfect from the start. check out the side by side comparison.
so when all was said and done i got these holds out of it. there are 29 holds in that picture. add to that the 12 archive holds i molded and it's quite a bit for the money. consider a normal set of 5 holds costs around $35-45 bucks and the resin cost me $90. sure the rubber was another added cost but i think it was worth it. Once last word of confidence for you if your think this process looks too difficult. take a look at the retarded pot smoking mega dirt bag losers who run half the hold companies out there, then look at the visionless uninspired mega companies that make up the other half. do you really think you cant do at least a decent job? i figure most people with half a brain can do this!
okay that's it... go away. what's that... archive hold? i never mentioned that? really? ah, well the molds slowly break down over time. the rubber wears out. but you can make an archive hold that never gets climbed on. this hold just sits in a box in case you want to remake a mold. generally i dont color them. the best time to archive i have found is the third pour. the first two clean all the foam out and any subsequent pours are losing quality of the mold. the company says the molds should last for about 40-60 pours. thats a lot of the same hold. but if you keep your designs generic enough you can have a lot of the same hold. also you can prolong the life of the mold by avoiding letting it dry out. see the molds have an oil to them and every time you make a hold that oil gets pulled out. also they lose there oil just sitting around. so get some clear machine oil and lubed up your rubber and store them in a dark place in a plastic bag. at least this is what i was told and it seems to be working. anyone want to fact check me?
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