1000 Miniatures

Things were very different years ago. We were trying to increase our homemade miniature production. We thought about making a two parts plaster mold. We had never done this.

After an entire day working hard to get at least one mold done, we tried to make the first miniature, but we didn't get it. The miniature didn't get out of the mold. It came out in pieces. When I think that today there are a lot of videos on youtube showing how to make this job! But that time we had nothing. We tried again and again. Now the miniatures were coming out of the mold, but completely deformed!

We thought about silicon molds, but the silicon wasn't sold as it is today. It was sold only in enormous quantities to the industries. The only silicon we could buy was the silicon that is sold to dentists. It was very expensive, but we bought. We made a mold and the miniature came out wonderful!

However, each time we made a miniature the mold was damaged. Then, we found out that the mold was able to make only about 100 miniatures! That was worthless. The silicon was too much expensive and each miniature would have to cost a fortune.

My husband thought about to make an oven in our backyard too, so at least the miniatures would be lighter and resistant. He made an electric oven using refractory bricks and cement. There was an iron little door and a key power. But we couldn't put all miniatures in this oven because they had to be hollow and some miniatures were too small to be hollowed, but still too "big" to get that high temperature (it would be distroyed). So, just some of the miniatures were placed in the oven after dried.

But we didn't stop thinking about the molds. My husband got an idea. He ordered natural latex from Amazon forest! That time the government had built the BR320 Transamazon highway - an enormous highway of 4000 Km (about 2500 miles) through the tropical forest and there were a lot of big trucks going there. The latex is extracted from the "seringueira" (the rubber tree), a common Amazon tree.

So, we got the cheap latex from Amazon forest and tried to make our molds. We didn't know how to deal with the latex. That look like honey (same color, same texture, but not the same taste!). I don't know how my husband found out how to deal with that.

We had to put the miniature inside the latex can and then put it close to the fire. We had to make a big fire in the backyard to get the molds done. It seemed we were from the Stone Age, but the molds were great and cheap! And more: the latex last longer than silicon.

But we had to had a plaster mold to hold the latex mold. That seemed very complicated. We solve the problem diferently. As we live close to the beach, we got a box full of sand and the molds had to stay placed in the sand. The sand takes the form of the latex mold, so we hadn't to make that complicated plaster mold. Also, we had to start making plaster miniatures because the clay doesn't work well in the latex molds.

After all of this, we could have boxes and boxes full of miniatures quickly, although the painting process was still slow. I was making about 1000 miniatures/month and selling all of them.

PS.: Dear readers, next post I will tell you how my little factory was distroyed by fire!