Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: paleonet casting agent

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I asked Mark Goodwin, UCMP's guy who does this stuff on all sorts of fossils, about it and he sent this:

Hydrocal is a plaster of paris, formulated for a hard, relatively quick cure. Plaster is best for the uses required below: it's inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, compatible with latex molding compounds, no separator is needed, stable and can be fixed, if broken, with elmers glue and a little water.

At 10:03 AM 2/9/2005 -0800, you wrote:

PaleoNet has been searching for some good casting material. Maybe you can help?

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Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 10:16:41 -0600
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
From: Roy Plotnick <plotnick@uic.edu>
Subject: Re: paleonet casting agent
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At 06:36 PM 2/8/2005 -0800, you wrote:

Hi,

Our education centre manager is looking for a material which can be used to cast replicas from latex moulds of fossils and needs something that can effectively cure in less than about 10-15 minutes and which members of the general public can take home and stick on their mantelpiece. With my limited knowledge I suspect that plaster-of-paris would take too long to cure. Does anyone know of anything that would cure in such a short time, but which is not expensive?

-

Model railroaders use a material called Hydrocal, (made by US Gypsum) which sets very quickly and makes harder casts than plaster of paris. You can buy it in bulk. - Roy

Roy E. Plotnick
Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago
845 W. Taylor St.
Chicago, IL 60607
plotnick@uic.edu
office phone: 312-996-2111 fax: 312-413-2279
lab phone: 312-355-1342
web page: http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm
"The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women, Louisa May Alcott