Plasticarve: "That Wax Maureen Used"

If you ever found the Love estate auctions on the Hagen-Renaker On-Line Museum site, chances are that a big question mark formed in your head, as if sculpted right out of "Plastic Carve". Several auction items were described as made of this material, correctly spelled "Plasticarve". This keyword alone has no English leads on Google, until this post, at least!

A very short summary of the pottery process:

First, Maureen sculpted rough models in modeling plastilina (oil-based, waxy clay that can't be kiln-fired). She'd make a waste mold on this original, since most manufacturers wanted a hard master for making their own molds. Her waste molds are sometimes called "ball molds", and have a rounded shape, compared to squared-off molds for production. 

I spy with my little eye... Maureen's fingerprint, right above .COM

This is the ball mold for one of the licensed Muscovy ducklings from Share The Love.

To cut weight, instead of pouring a solid matrix on each side, she flicked plaster on segments and gradually built a ball-shape around the model. The empty ball mold would be soaked in water, drained, and then hot Plasticarve was poured inside to make a new positive/figure. The Plasticarve had traits of both wax and clay, and even plaster (polishing potential). 

Plasticarve.

The Maureen Love Originals Foal, aka, the MFMG "Calendar Foal".

This rough version is the older MLO foal.

          Plasticarve   / MLO stoneware /    MFMG "Calendar Foal"

By resculpting and smoothing out the Plasticarve, she got a perfectly refined, hard master that could hold up its own weight, without a wire armature.

Now that you can see how useful this material is, I'm delighted to be able to share with you the story of Plasticarve, from the son of its licensed manufacturer. He contacted me after finding a mention of Plasticarve on this blog. 


KP (name withheld by request) wrote:

The inventor of Plasticarve was Pat Crouse. The story I know is that he developed it for use in the aircraft industry for fairing wings to fuselages in the ‘40s. 

The inventor, with some partners, made up a craft kit that consisted of an instruction booklet, some tools ( knife, pencil, carving tools) in a box. A pattern for a head of Lincoln was included. This was in the 1940’s. The story, as it came to me, is that Pat ( the inventor) had contracts with major department stores for Christmas, and then there was a railroad strike that prevented getting the product out, so the venture went bankrupt. My dad bought the residual goods, so we had hundreds of the knives and wax pencils stored for years and years….we would sell a couple a year. I used to have one of the booklets but I think it is lost now. 

My father bought the residual business from Pat (a family friend) and continued the sales to sculptors, ceramicists, and the like.  After he died I continued to make it, but it was a struggle since I had no permanent place to keep the equipment for mixing, etc. so I eventually gave it up.

I have looked for an alternative to Plasticarve on the market, as I guess there are still people that need the low temperature melting point and easy working with hand tools, but I have not found one.  Computer modeling and 3-D printing is all the fashion now but I guess there are still artists who want to work with their hand tools directly.

Great to read your story about the Plasticarve model from Maureen that turned out to be slipcast.  My dad used to make plasticarve and I guess he sold it to Maureen, either directly or via Westwood Ceramic.  I have the old account books so I can check if she was a direct customer or not.

I did the easy part, i.e. flipped through the business records from the 50s to the 70s.  Unless Maureen used a business name she was not a direct customer, so maybe she bought the Plasticarve from a Southern California ceramics supply, who used to carry it in their catalog.

KP was trying to balance his university studies with the laborious production of Plasticarve at a remote location from school. Eventually, he could not keep up with demand and was dropped as a vendor. Laguna Clay Company acquired the (name withheld) ceramics supply in the 1990's. The specific date jives with when I started hearing of, and later, seeing, Laurilyn Burson recycling some of Maureen's old Plasticarve models, melting them back down to become new positives for her to polish. 


KP wrote:

... in the old days we had a couple of steady customers from the toy industry.    The story was that they would sculpt the masters for toys in Plasticarve, then electroplate a copper mold directly on the Plasticarve master to replicate it in plastics. I remember meeting one of the artists at a trade show and he definitely did not want to talk about Plasticarve in public ( this was the 60’s) since he regarded it as one of his trade secrets.

I am not sure that anyone does that any more, since the 3-D machining is everywhere.  Although I work in the tech industry I do not use any of the 3D modeling software so I do not know how intuitive the user interfaces may be.

Indeed, I found a toy collectors forum talking about this use:

"Kenner used a number of different waxes over the years. I know they used a product called Plasticarve (sp?), which I believe is that pinkish stuff, but it varied. During the early ESB years they seem to have used a white-colored wax quite a bit, and it has a different consistency. Some sculptors even formulated their own blends. In general, it's nothing like the wax of a crayon or a candle; it's not nearly so oily or crumbily. I believe it has a lot of talcum powder in it, which gives it a kind of smooth, finely-textured feel, and probably helps it to take fine detail." 
- username ronsalvatore

Ron pretty much nails the description of Plasticarve, right there. I've seen it in gray, cream, and light pink. Sci-fi nerds take note: this came from a discussion about the original 1977 Star Wars action figure prototypes in Plasticarve. 


KP wrote:

The other use was for masters for plaster molds for slip casting, which I guess is what you are using it for.  I have never done that myself so I am curious how you create the parting lines to get the mold to pull cleanly from the master.

Plasticarve with plaster mold parting lines still visible.

The Maureen Love Originals Foal, aka, the MFMG "Calendar Foal".

The answer to that is, "very carefully". My first professional experience with Plasticarve was when I designed the Miniatures Guinea Pig for Hagen-Renaker, in late 1995. I recall that when I completed the brown plastilina model, Laurilyn made the waste mold. The mold is a sculpture, in itself!

Photo courtesy Joan Berkwitz.

Plasticarve original Guinea Pig submitted to Hagen-Renaker.

Ceramic produced Fall 1996 to Fall 1997.

I was so careful to not break off his wee feet, while cleaning off his mold lines and sharpening his detail in the nostrils, eyes, and fur texture. I love how easy it is to polish, fill, and shape, and yet it is strong.


KP wrote:

I found your website….we are from the same part of California, since I grew up in Orange County. I was interested to read that Maureen worked for a company in Monrovia, since my parents had many friends in that area. My dad was a potter in addition to working as an engineer ( mostly throwing on the wheel)  so I wonder if he knew the folks at the company Maureen worked for….I will ask my mom the next time I see her.

...Just so you are not disappointed, one difference that you will notice is that the color has changed. I used to add pigment to get the white color, but the pigment went out of production so now the color is  sort of grey. 

I'm not bothered by this, as I have seen Plasticarve in several shades- from white/cream to peach to this khaki. With Plasticarve becoming so scarce, and serious potters needing it for their own businesses, I had to quickly adapt to pottery production with no wax intermediary stage. I learned to polish the brown plastilina with condensation, since oils and spirits break down the clay. When I need a hard master to supply to clients nowadays, I sculpt directly in Aves Apoxie and have resins cast. I'd love to be able to go back to the old way of doing it, for my own pottery moldmaking, as plaster molding directly off of brown clay and Apoxie each have their drawbacks. At last, there is a chance to do that.

KP's Plasticarve from storage, ready to be shaped into something new!

KP has a limited supply of his father's formula on hand, and I am ordering some for my studio. He offers these tips for working with this wax:

Melting temp is 143 F….melt in a double boiler.
You can color by adding crayons.

Initial blocking out by carving can be eased by warming the whole piece in warm water.

You can weld or repair with a hot knife.  Put the two parts together and probe the joint deeply with the hot knife to knit the parts together.  Small defects can be filled by puddling some scraps on the surface

I am told you can paint by spraying on a very dry coat of shellac first.  I have never done this.

In the past, I used steel minarettes, an alcohol torch, and a modified soldering iron on a rheostat. Now, I own an electric wax pen (high tech version of the same thing), so that should be perfect for Plasticarve work. If anyone out there needs their historic Plasticarve models restored, I may be able to help.

A certain complex, kicking Somali donkey jenny will be my Plasticarve test subject for ceramic production. Watch for a future photo tutorial on the whole process, this winter!



References:

KP (name withheld). Pers. comm. October 3rd-16th, 2014.

Ed Alcorn's Hagen-Renaker On-Line Museum: http://hagenrenakerhorses.com/MaureenLoveEstate.html

Plasticarve Foal from the Margo Potheau Collection. Thank you, Margo and Danielle.

Ball mold courtesy Share The Love.

The Mane of Sun Cortez

This post does not reflect the opinions of Hagen-Renaker nor its employees. The following is my opinion and my interpretation of the submitted examples.

This disclaimer is necessary because the established stance is, HR's DW molds were never altered between Monrovia and San Dimas. 

The mold retooling that took place in the early 1980's for San Marcos is both acknowledged by collectors and by Jim Renaker, according to Nancy Kelly*.

Hagen-Renakers' Designer's Workshop mold, Sun Cortez, is a prime example of the observations I am (and other collectors are) making about mold differences between Monrovia and San Dimas factory eras. Of the molds that survived at least two factory eras, I have observed that quite a few went through an apparent resculpt and remolding. Some of us collectors summarize the entire multiple mold situation by citing "the mane of Sun Cortez" as the classic example of change.

Collectors are less likely to see the middle-era mold variant, because the San Dimas mold version is so rare. The main side-by-side comparison in this post is between Monrovia and San Marcos. Further on, the San Dimas will be shown. You read that correctly, I interpret three separate mold versions of Sun Cortez.

Left: San Dimas White matte photo and owned by author;

Right: Monrovia Palomino owned by Jayne Kubas

Why edit a mold's mane?

The mane flip of Monrovia Sun Cortez is prone to chipping. 

Maybe the resculpt reduced loss in shipping and retail?

If you are wondering why such an otherwise crisply detailed palomino 

has a smooth face, keep reading...

Huge difference in neck wrinkles and shoulder sculpture, too.

Different hindquarter muscle sculpts.

Different shoulder muscles.

Different chest muscles, throats.

The mane, however, is not the only difference. The entire x-y axes orientation of the heads are different, and it's in the mold. In fact, the above smoothed-out face isn't from a mismatched older mold piece (as evidenced by the neck and throat wrinkles) nor a sponge wipe. It was purposefully flooded of all undercuts because the head makes a 45 degree, when viewed from above.

Monrovia 45 degrees, San Marcos 90 degrees. 

The more open angle makes demolding easier and allows more face detail.

Monrovia head tilts slightly upwards.

Above, San Marcos has distinct points of buttock and differentiated tail.

Below, crispy Monrovia is boneless and has little detail in tail.

San Marcos analogous Achilles tendon goes all the way up to tail swish;

in the Monrovia mold, the tendon ends abruptly halfway up to tail.

Differences: cheekbone, lips, nostril, eye, curb, throat...

San Marcos has face veins.

Differences: cheekbones, nostrils, eye bulges, width between eyes, brow, width of muzzle...

So, the above comparison, showing retooling, is consistent with Jim's information.

San Marcos Cortez molds -King, Sun, and Don- in White (glossy and matte) are also interesting because unlike the Arabian family and DW Head-Up and -Down Ponies, their gray shading is like the old underglaze gray of the previous eras. Other than the Cortez trio, other San Marcos molds in white have a dark, cold tone to their gray shading, in both matte and gloss.

Note the dark, bluish gray shading on this San Marcos matte white Zara.

Compare to the matte and glossy white San Marcos Sun Cortez models below.

Zara photos by author.

San Marcos White matte left, glossy on right.

Photo courtesy Marcia Miner.

San Marcos White glossy, and now matte on right.

Photos courtesy Ed Alcorn.

San Marcos White matte. 

His hooves give away that he is not the bluish gray, despite photo contrast.

Photo courtesy Janis Whitcomb.

San Marcos White glossy, photos courtesy Nancy Falzone.

Look at that soft gray, even under the intensifier of gloss!

The San Dimas mold version, in the very rare bay color. The San Dimas also was released in palomino. As you can see, the San Dimas mold has an altered mane, like San Marcos. Unlike the later era, though, the face details are not as chiseled and hard. Neither are the facial features flooded like Monrovia. The San Dimas is, in my opinion, the in-between mold version. Speaking from my own experience as a moldmaker, it is challenging to mold and cast ceramic horses with such an extreme neck turn. I can understand why this horse was molded over and over, refining it for ease of production.

No mane flip, but retains Monrovia body muscle sculpts and short "Achilles".

The face is neither Monrovia nor San Marcos.

Photo courtesy Sue Thiessen.

Model owned by Nancy Falzone.

Top Row: Monrovia

Lower two: San Dimas

No mane flips on San Dimas.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn.

Here is what appears to be a Monrovia-San Dimas Transition model.

White on the altered San Dimas mold!

His eye decoration and sticker are similar to the transition model shown in this post.

Photos courtesy Marcia Miner.

Left: white "transition" with no mane flip

Right: Monrovia palomino

Unlike my usual portrait investigations, I came up dry on the real Sun Cortez. I have this photo to share, but of the two palominos standing behind King Cortez, I can't tell you which one he is. 

Far left: King Cortez, Ernest Specht up.

The other Cortez boys are ridden by Ernest's sisters.

The photo above, with Sun and Don in parade sets, indicated that the tack was made around 1960. My research has shown that some parts of King's set existed as far back as 1947, the date of the photo of him shown below.

King Cortez in 1947, with his early parade set. 

Source: The Visual Arts: Plastic and Graphic, by Justine M. Cordwell, Google Books.

Page 674. Photo originally from Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association archives.

King Cortez seems to be a bit older than Sun and Don, as he is in promotional photos in a simpler, earlier version of his famous Bohlin parade set that dates to 1947. The post-1960 group photo shows King with a grown-out mane.  In the references below, you can view a link to a King Cortez publicity photo dated to 1949. He was a famous parade horse, hence the multiple photos of him.

The three Cortez stallions premiered in Fall 1957 as HR Designer's Workshop models. The palomino matte of Monrovia and San Dimas is, obviously, the portrait color. 

More mold observation posts in the future!



Gratitude to Jayne Kubas for her help with the side-by-side photo shoot, and to everyone who sent photos: Ed Alcorn, Nancy Falzone, Marcia Miner, Cindy Neuhaus, Sue Thiessen, and Janis Whitcomb.


References:

* Kelly, Nancy. Pers. comm. 5/5/2012

Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Catalogue. Third Edition. P. 80. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

1949 King Cortez old saddle set photo http://www.dancinghorses.com/king_cortez.htm

full color
http://circusnospin.blogspot.com/2008/06/specht-family-well-known-pasadena.html

Muddy Monday: Reunited in Clay

Is fifty-five years too long to wait for a "boyfriend"? 

As covered in this earlier post, my research indicates that the real mare used for Hagen-Renaker's Roan Lady model had only one recorded mate. This stallion was two-time World Champion, Go Boy's Shadow, and for reasons already discussed, I aimed to sculpt a portrait of him.

I wanted to sculpt him in Trad size (1/9th scale) for the purpose of a resin run that is in scale with my other 2013 resin editions. At the same time, I wanted him to be around mid-DW or classic size (1/12th scale-ish), so that he stood just 1/8th of an inch taller than HR's Roan Lady. The goal was that the ceramics could be plausibly displayed together. After all, Zara has Amir, Sheba has Ferseyn, Erin has Two Bits...

First, I poured a waste mold on the original sculpture, salvaged after the resin edition silicone mold was made by my husband. I had to glue an ear back on, but otherwise went straight into it. 

Original epoxy sculpt clayed up and ready for the first plaster pour.
Waste molds don't have to be big and fancy.

Here comes the plaster!

Many pours later, this is what the cleaned mold looks on the inside, 

several pieces removed for photo.

Left: first generation bisque
Right: 8 3/4" tall original epoxy sculpt, after plaster molding trauma

The previous post about this sculpture mentioned pouring a rubber master. This plan changed. My husband helps with the rubber pouring, but he was swamped with his own work. To stay on schedule, I went forward with a technique that is tested and true, but might be a bit horrifying to ceramic fanciers. It involves destruction! 

I have to pour a "waste" or "clean-out" casting in each mold, to remove any mold soap residue my sponge may have missed, after I pull the original out. This clean-out casting was quite riddled with plaster and soap gunk, and to glaze him would have been folly. I don't want any of that to cause a resist while airbrushing or firing the piece! So, if it is to be used at all, it has only one reliable state: being unglazed bisque. The great thing about bisque is that it loves mold soap. It just yums it right up. A clean-out bisque casting is just the thing to mold off of, when you want to shrink the sculpt down a generation and retain all that first-shot mold detail.

Soaping up the first gen bisque for the next gen plaster moldmaking.
The two dark gray patches are epoxy, filling the vent in belly and a divot on face.

The bisque awaits its final plaster piece pour.

Rather than mold the second generation off a soft rubber, I molded directly off of the first generation bisque out of the waste mold. Its lovely, clean surface was just saturated with mold soap, and even water mist droplets beaded up on it. As each poured piece of plaster cures, it does a little expansion-contraction dance, pressing against the hard bisque that lacks the "give" of a rubber master. If the planes and parting lines have been planned correctly, the two main outer halves, and most of the small pieces, will come away from the bisque in perfect shape, without coaxing. However, the inner leg pieces of a mold with a parallel-legs stance and/or a belly piece between the thighs (like this sculpt) are pressing against two bisque surfaces, locked in place. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and this holds true for the bisque.

Strategic bisque breaking yields a clean release, with no damage to the plaster.

So, now I have a perfect second generation mold; in fact, it's much better than the waste mold. I made a mistake on a waste mold piece (chest) that I did not repeat on the second mold, which saves me some greenware cleaning grief.

How do the greenware casting measure up to each other? Here they are, dry and raw.

Next, I poured a clean-out casting as before, but this time, in the smaller mold. This casting wasn't perfect, and I could have very easily tossed him away, but I really wanted a black portrait model of my own. Badly. I cleaned every bit of plaster and soap off of him (he was much cleaner than the first guy), ran him through a first bisque, and started the airbrush stages of underglazing him a realistic sunburnt black. In the raw underglaze stage, the color rubs off like pastels on your hands, or any surface where it rests. I use the softest things I can find to handle him, and I try not to sneeze, talk, or cough. Any of that can permanently stain him with moisture drops!

Raw underglazes.

After the bisque fire, his color sharpened up. I then decorated his eyes and details by hand. I love hooves with detail, and it takes some tricks to give them the optic effect of layers of hoof wall.

Bisque underglazes.

Final height: 7 3/8" tall.

Top left: In his prime, showing snip and sock on this side.

Top right: in retirement, showing sunburnt black

Lower Left: in prime, showing other side of sock

Lower Right: completed portrait of retired horse

Real horse images used with permission of webmaster Judy Handel.

Then, I had to spray on satin glaze. Satin hates black underglaze, or vice versa. They don't play well together. It either is a drought, where the black sucks up every bit of glaze and leaves a dry surface, or it's a flood. Then, the glaze looks opaque white or gray, obscuring the true color below. Anxiety over how it would look kept me from sleeping.

I had worried enough to sate the kiln gods, I guess, because he came out as I'd hoped. Many collectors find black horses boring, but you'd be surprised how many colors and layers went into this black. I was so smitten, I took him outside for photographs in his "native environment", a pasture of Tennessee.

This sums up what I wanted to do, and now I am satisfied. I will now make a few of these for sale, in different colors. It will be less painful to part with each one because I have my Go Boy's Shadow. Roan Lady has him, too.

It is fascinating to compare the masculine short back with the mare-long back.

The masculine shoulder and neck is contrasted with the feminine.

The feminine face against the "hard" stallion face.

Overall, he lost 1 3/8", but he gained a whole Lady.

Gratitude to everyone who wrote to me (publicly and privately) about the TWH series of posts, and to those who gave me encouragement in person and on the phone. I'm looking forward to seeing more representations of Heritage TWH in collections and in the model show ring. The availability of this particular sculpture is:

Unpainted trad-size resin (link to ad)
Small trad-size ceramic
Roan Lady-size ceramic

Left to right: original sculpt, small trad-size ceramic, RL-size ceramic with braided forelock customization.

I am the only source producing all of these, at Lucas Francis Studio. You may private message/email me for more information on the ceramics; the resin has all its information in that ad. Thank you for following the progress!