WED clay experience

[Buster]

Do any of you sculpt with WED clay? I found that it is commonly used by the special effects guys in movie studios.

I had never heard of this stuff until recently and just picked up a 50 pound box of it last night. Apparently, it is a modeling water and oil based clay (shouldn't fire it) that is super smooth and because of the oil content, dries slowly and doesn't shrink. Seems like it is the perfect medium for large sculpture since it would have the best of both worlds (oil and water based clays).

I love working in water base, but use oil base for pieces I am going to cast. Plasteline is nasty, sticky stuff, but it is useful for modeling small pieces. The wed clay is cheap - only about $13 for a 50 pound box.

Anyway, I am going to make a wall hanging sculpture out of the wed clay, spray it (while still wet)with Krylon crystal clear to seal it, then mold it and cast it in Forton MG to make a light and very strong piece.

I'd be interested in hearing of any good/bad experiences or problems you've had working with this type of clay.

[fritchie]

Buster - I'm interested to hear more, too. I've never heard of this, but with those properties it may be a good item to try. Can you supply more details on sources? (I'm not looking for more adverts on this site, but occasionally something like this might be of interest.)

Please let us know your reaction after you use it.

[Buster]

It's a product by Laguna Clay company. Official name EM-217
Apparently developed by Walter E. Disney (WED). I just ordered a box through my local ceramic supplier where I buy my regular ceramic clay (www.marjonceramics.com (http://www.marjonceramics.com)) or look on LagunaClay.com (http://www.lagunaclay.com) to see where your nearest distributor is. I'll let you know how I like it.

[fused]

Forton MG... (http://users.lmi.net/~drewid/FortonMG.html)

btw... Mark Prent at Pink House Studios is a great guy and an amazing sculptor.

[rickb]

I realize I'm very late chiming in here, but I really love working in this (WED) clay. I do most of my work in harder oil based clays to better survive the molding process, hold finer details on small pieces and last months unattended in the studio, but doing a portrait or a larger piece with WED is really nice. It is so fast and smooth... Messy (water based clay clean up) but nice.

RB

http://www.richardbecker.com

[mtd]

I worked with it once on a special FX job (back in the day). It's great for large scale pieces. Here's a link to a WED clay video from compleate sculptor.

good luck.
MD

http://www.sculpt.com/catalog_98/videos/clayvideos.htm
Mark Alfeys's Sculpting With WED Clay

[Buster]

Oh - it's been a while since I visited here and I forgot all about this post. Here is the finished piece that I modeled in WED, then cast in Forton MG with bronze in the face coat. In short - loved it. Just like regular ceramic, only better. Sealed it and molded it wet without any problems. I'll be using this from now on for modeling large pieces.
Also, my first time using forton. What a great material for making wall hangings. This piece is about 24 inches tall, 8 inches deep, but only weighs about 6 or 7 pounds.

[mtd]

Off topic but, Forton MG is great too. There are several other "resin/plaster" materials out there, I think Compleat Sculptor has a few. These are very similar to Forton but you have fewer componnents to mix. Call them up for details.
MD

http://sculpt.com/catalog_98/CastingMaterials/ENHANCEDGYP/MATRIXINDEX.htm

http://sculpt.com/catalog_98/CastingMaterials/ENHANCEDGYP/aqua-resin.html