So soon I will have all the molds required to create the Hirst Arts Cathedral. Gulp.

I’ve owned some of these molds for 3 years now (February 11th, 2003 was my first order of Fieldstone) and have noticed no wear or damage.

I have done tens of casts with most of my molds and am probably approaching 100 casts with some of my earlier fieldstone molds. I’d suggest posting your question again on the Hirst Arts EZBoard forum as there’s people on there that have done a lot more casting with their molds than I.

One thing I would consider it *not* using Mr Hirst’s ‘scraping’ technique for levelling the plaster in the molds but instead use the plexiglass (or cheaper CD cover) method I mention in that high detail casting link. I believe you get better results and it’s less hard on the molds than scraping.

I think your precasting idea sounds fine as you’d want to protect the club’s investment and have maybe one or two people you can trust to treat the molds with the appropriate respect. They are after all rubber and can certainly be torn through rough handling.

But treat them with even a little respect and they’ll last for years. As I said in the original post I can’t recommend them enough!

I’m thinking I could sell the idea to the club exec if we could have a number of “precast” blocks on hand and sold at a premium to finance the next batch of moulds, but the lifetime on the moulds would a factor. What is your opinion?