"Durhams Water Putty" Topic

Does anyone, who has had experience with Durham'a Water Putty know if you can add acryllic paint to the mix without causing problems to the results?

I just want to be sure that adding paint won't change the composition. Thanks in advance.

My experiments with coloring Durhams were a couple years ago, and were mostly unsuccessful. Curing times were greatly extended if not stopped completely.

I mixed black paint powder to Durhams to good effect. Made a nice grey for urban buildings and rubble.

Chuck

My experience is that pigments work, but media is a gamble.
Durhams is more like a glue then a plaster.

Consider tubes of water color or powered pigments. Dust, grit, fine sand, even rust, worked ok for me.

I haven't had an issue… though I mix my Durhams with sand and glue as well.

Joe Collins

I have always found it works better to let it dry and then paint it. Spray paint seems to be the best bond to it to allow you to move to other modifications. I

If you do try and color it, mix the paint into the water before adding to the powdered durhams. This way, the paint will not inhibit the set up of the mix.

Doug

I mixed the paint with water and then used proportions in instructions. Black paint gives gray results, like Chuck05 says.

I use Durham's almost exclusively to make all my terrain and also to make miniatures via press-molding. Examples can be found on my blog.

solipsistgaming.blogspot.com

Like Farstar said, I've found acrylic paint mixed with the putty drastically slows down the cure time. For my starship miniatures I spray them first with gray primer and then brush-paint with acrylics when the primer drys.

Water-putty always absorbs water, even after weeks of curing. That makes it easy to clean up, but also makes it easy to damage during painting. I've found any paint with excess water content softens the details of the putty cast. I therefore use a drybrush technique only.

I also pour putty into molds quite a bit and I've found adding acryilc paint to the putty just gets the mold dirty. Just another reason to avoid mixing paint with the putty.

How would it work in one sided molds? I normally use Alumilite and it's expensive.. I have some crater molds etc… and I just pour inthe liquid..

How does the Water putty work?

I have seen the prices and by far they are the cheapest if it works..

Durhams works great in one-sided molds. There are a number of Durhams fans pouring Hirst molds with it. The set time is longer, but the result is much lighter weight than the super tough plasters Hirst usually recommends. There are a few of the Hirst molds I would avoid if using Durhams, but for the most part it works just fine.

How would it work in one sided molds? I normally use Alumilite and it's expensive.

Moe, like Farstar said Durham's works great for one sided molds. I'm assuming you use both Alumilite silicone for the molds and their resin for casting? For very fine detail like replicating a figure or vehicle you've sculpted, this is fine (I use Alumilite HS3 for my molds). For terrain features where you can accept, or maybe even want some flaws in your casts (like your crater), you're right: Alumilite is way too costly.

For terrain features I use silicone caulk for cheap one-sided molds. Taxidermy.net has a great tutorial on how: link I made a small (50mm long) rock wall for 15mm infantry games using aquarium rocks, then made a mold of it. Now whenever I do any projects with water-putty, I just pour the excess into this mold. In a short time I've amassed a huge collection of walls and prevented waste too.

WOW… Using Silicone Caulk for making molds.. Who would ahve thought..

I do use alumilite for making my molds and I liek the High Strength Pink stuff.

Most of my molds are terrain and 1 sided.. I will ahve to give it a try and report what happens.

Silicone caulk recipe for mold-making.
link

I purchased some Durhams last night.. Hopefully have pics this weekend.