Making of World War One Bayonet replica - Molding

I was hired by the Greve Museum, to bring this dangerous relic in to the light and joy of the general public. In Denmark we have vary strict weapons law, prohibiting people owning and wearing weapons in public. Greve Museum and Greve Commune are restoring an old fort from the First World War lying on the shores of Sealand-Greve. Mosede Forstas it is called was build in 1916 to prevent Germans from landing and taking the city of Copenhagen. Together with sea mines it was a formidable defense. But Germans never came (c:

Well no more history lessons ,.. her's my story on how I made this. I' had desided on making a block mold. I realy like this method. Im my experiance the molds are easily stackable, making them more space effective then the glove molds and can be easily clamped down for plastic pouring.

The bayonet is placed on a bed of clay, ready to receive the first detail coat. Making the clay bed was a bit tricky doe to the complexity of the peace. The hand-guard of the bayonet presents a challenge. It has a hole feature on the right side of hand-guard it is designed so it would not abstract firing of the rifle, when equipped with the bayonet.
I had to think ahead on how i would demold the peace before the mold was made.

I had to carefully fill in the hole with lay making a hill in the oposit direction on witch i would pull the peace when demolding.

  

After ther first coat it is layed out to rest for a good half an hour

  

I've cleaned up the edges, and incased the whole thing inside of cardboard, to prevent the next silicone poor from spilling out.

  

You have to pay extra attesion to making the edge leakproof, sealing the carboard well, so you wouldent end up with a wery expencive pool of silicone on the flore (c;

  

After a seconde poor of silicone and i my case 6 hours of curing time you can remove the retaining wall and klean up the edges a bit.

  

There's a lot of waiting time in this business, but the best thing is to open a freshly made form, its an incredible feeling of excitement.

  

  

  

  

Now that's what i call a pretty sight. There is some cleaning up to do, to remove the stray clay peaces and slashing on the sides.

The next step is to pour plastic and painting/weathering but that is a whole different story (c;

Want to know more (c: her's part II