Developed by Pink House Studios, Reducit is a
unique positive casting material which will shrink uniformly,
resulting in scale replicas from most molds. In a single stage
of reduction, a Reducit cast will shrink to approximately
half of its original volume, or 2/3 its original size in linear
dimensions. Further reductions can be achieved by taking a molds
from the reduced cast and repeating the casting and drying process.
This is a new improved formulation of our Reducit ,
which is more economical, since less Reducit powder
is required in proportion to water. Please carefully read the
instructions to note this change.
Pouring the Reducit Cast:
By volume, combine two-parts of water with 1-part Reducit.
Add the Reducit to the water and blend the mixture
with a Jiffy Mixer. The
drill with the Jiffy Mixer will rotate in a clockwise
direction, so from time to time, move the whole tool in a counter-clockwise
direction, scraping the sides as the Reducit mixture
blends. We very strongly recommend the use of a Jiffy Mixer
(see our product sheet on Jiffy Mixer ) for this
operation, since it is critical to the success of the reducing
process that theReducit and water are mixed until
absolutely smooth. Mix for a minimum of one minute. The appearance
of the mixture may be deceptively smooth, until you look more
closely and discover that there are still many lumps of unblended
material. If any of these lumps are allowed to remain unblended
in the mixture, they will result in tiny raised points on the
surface of the cast as it dries. The lumps will not be visible
at first, when the cast is removed from the mold; they will only
emerge later during the drying process, indicating that theReducit
was not thoroughly mixed. The consistency of the Reducit
will be somewhat thick, but still fluid enough to be poured
or brushed into your molds. You will want to work quickly, pouring
all of theReducit into the mold as you move it against
the surface of the mold with your fingers or a brush, to ensure
that you make good contact with your mold and avoid trapping air
bubbles in the fine details. If you are filling a two-piece mold
that includes lots of small details such as fingers and toes,
you may coat each half of the mold separately, then join them
and fill to the top; or, first close your mold and reach into
it with a brush to coat the surface. For a hand mold, use a small
brush with a long handle and push it into the finger tips. You
have about ten-minutes of working time from the moment you dump
yourReducit into the water, until it is no longer
workable. For large or small pieces, wait at least one hour before
unmolding.
Place your cast in our specially adapted Dehydrator to
dry. It has been modified by Pink House Studios with a cylinder
ofSimplaflex that fits down inside the Dehydrator
and lines-up with the lid. This adaptation allows the Dehydrator
to accept forms as large as (or larger than) a life-size head.
The Dehydrator has a fixed diameter of 12-inches, but the
height can be adapted to accommodate almost any piece up to 27-inches
high (or slightly higher). The Dehydrator is a convenient
option for drying that speeds the process considerably without
the adverse affects of drying in too intense heat. In the Dehydrator,
a life-size human head will reach its ideal shrunken proportions
in about 3 1/2 days (84 hours) as opposed to anywhere from two
weeks to a month, if allowed to air-dry. The speed of air drying
depends upon the relative humidity of the environment.
In highly humid environments, mold may grow on the cast as it
slowly air-dries. Pink House Studios does offer a mold-retarding
product to prevent this, should you choose to air-dry your cast
rather than place it in our Dehydrator. If you have the
time, air-drying works best; if you haven't, the dehydrator provides
a fast , controlled way to shrink our Reducit castings.
It is important to remember that the use of excessive heat to
speed drying will cause distortion of the Reducit cast.
For this reason, the use of an oven or microwave should not even
be considered. Besides the distortion factor, there is the safety
and energy waste to consider.
Always position your Reducit casting upright in
the Dehydrator. If necessary, you can lay small wedges
of wood under the sides to stabilize it. Once it is is in the
Dehydrator, you will have to monitor it carefully since
it will dry quite rapidly. If a casting of a human head is allowed
to over-dry, this can result in some minor distortion in the form
of a slightly "sucked-in" appearance to the sides of
the head. You really have to watch for this when you use a dehydrator,
since the whole process speeds up so. It really is a judgment
call. On a head, the ears, nose etc. will shrink first because
they have less mass than the rest, and the water will evaporate
most quickly from those areas; but the rest will eventually catch-up
if you are patient. This is where your judgment comes in; when
the entire head appears to have once again assumed fairly accurate
proportions, it is time to remove the head from the Dehydrator
and make your mold of it. Of course, the Reducit dries
so gradually at room temperature, that once it is removed from
the Dehydrator, there is no great rush to get the mold
made immediately; eight hours outside of the chamber should not
make any appreciable difference (unless the room environment is
very hot and dry). So if you are about to call it a day and, upon
inspecting your head in the Dehydrator, you think it looks
like it is about "there", remove it from the chamber
and just leave it overnight; do not leave it in the Dehydrator
any longer. In the Dehydrator, eight hours can mean the
difference between a good reduction and one that has the "sucked-in"
distortion of over-drying. Once removed from the Dehydrator,
you can just watch it at room temperature until it reaches the
proper proportions, then make your mold; or, you can always put
it back into the Dehydrator the next morning for a couple
of hours, watching it closely.
With some objects, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether
or not they are allowed to dry-out completely. For instance, hands
can be allowed to become bone dry, without any distortion. The
fingers and extremities still dry-out first, but then everything
will catch-up. You can tell when the cast of a hand has reached
a fully-dried state by the pale, uniform tint. The issue of "sucking-in"
distortion really varies tremendously, depending upon the shape
of the form being dried.
Thin medallion-type forms will generally warp as they dry. One
of the things you can do to avoid the warpage is to build a wall
around the edge of your mold, a couple of inches high, so that
when you pour theReducit into the mold, you will
have added two inches of thickness to your cast. This will prevent
warpage, but the casting will naturally take longer to dry-out
and reduce. Another method is to pour beyond the edge of the mold
in order to create a "lip" of excess material (about
1/2-inch thick). After removing the casting from the mold, this
"lip" may be weighted-down to restrain the casting from
warping while it dries.
If you are casting a small figure (animal or human) that has
thin arms and legs, you may want to remove only one section of
your mold once the cast is "set", exposing a portion
of the Reducit cast to the air. The casting should
stay cradled in rest of the mold so that it is fully supported
until it partially dries-out and becomes more rigid. Then the
mold can be completely removed and the casting allowed to finish
shrinking.
The Simplaflex material
that is available from Pink House Studios can be cut to form a
cylinder of whatever height you require (up to 27") to contain
any particular form in the Dehydrator; but the object must
always stand upright in the chamber. SinceReducit is
somewhat flexibly soft, a tall casting should be supported in
the upright position in the chamber. It will become more stable
as it dries.
PLEASE NOTE: Always pour Reducit into a non-porous
mold such as rubber (urethane, silicone or latex). If you must
use a porous mold such as one of dried plaster or wood, it must
be sealed before casting so that the Reducit will
not stick to the surface of the mold.
Approximately 2-lbs. of Reducit is needed to fill
a mold of a life-size human head.
11/4-lbs.........................................................$15.00
11-lbs..........................................................$102.00
22-lbs..........................................................$189.00
Dehydrator with Simplaflex Adaptation. Available
in two sizes:
12" diameter X 12" high..............................$55.00
12" diameter X 27" high..............................$60.00
Vancide 51 Mold Retardent 4-oz. bottle...... $3.50
If you are in no particular rush, air drying your Reducit
cast is ideal since it does not require that one so closely
monitor the progress of shrinkage as does the use of the Dehydrator.
If you are air-drying a Reducit cast in a humid
environment, you will want to add someVancide mold-retardant
to the water before your blend in the Reducit ;
4-teaspoonsful are sufficient for the volume of a life-size head.
Plasto 8-oz. tin.......................................$29.95
A "little miracle" paste wax that will stick firmly
in place on virtually any surface; yet cleans away easily from
your cast or mold. Ideal for filling tiny air-bubbles and making
small corrections of your form prior to mold-making. Try it!
REDUCIT II
REDUCIT II is an entirely different material from our original
REDUCIT, which is still available. They are similar in that
they both yield castings that shrink to about half of the volume
of the master, which actually represents about a 30% reduction
by linear dimensions. REDUCIT II has the advantage of maintaining
fine surface detail better in its fully shrunken state. Original
REDUCIT castings have a rough, "sandpaper" quality
to the surface when fully reduced. Also, there is no risk of distortion
with REDUCIT II. We explain in our literature how to avoid
these problems with original REDUCIT; but it isn't a concern
with REDUCIT II.
Original REDUCIT dries to a hard material (almost like
plaster, so it can be sanded and filled etc.) REDUCIT II
is a urethane-like material, and always remains a firm rubbery
substance, throughout the reducing process, regardless of what
stage it is at; so you cannot sand or fill. It is extremely fragile
when first cast, but as it dries and reduces, it reaches a very
tough, rubber-like state.
The only disadvantage REDUCIT II has when compared with
original REDUCIT, is that it takes a very long time to
fully reduce. It can take several weeks to fully reduce a life-size
head that has been poured solid. On the positive side, it yields
a more accurate reproduction of all detail. With REDUCIT II,
warpage that may occur in a flat, shallow casting during the reduction
process, corrects itself before the piece is fully reduced in
size.
Since REDUCIT II is a urethane-base product, if you have
a silicone mold, no release is necessary. If you are using a urethane
mold, you must first apply a release to it, such as wax or silicone
spray; otherwise your REDUCIT II cast will stick to the
mold. Plaster molds must be sealed and a release should be applied
before casting into them with REDUCIT II, because urethane
will stick to shellac. For instance, you can use shellac to seal
the plaster, and then apply a paste-wax or spray-wax separator
over that.
If you are pouring a life-size head, you should proceed as follows:
turn the head mold on its side, make-up a small batch of REDUCIT
II and pour it into that ear. Once it gels (about four minutes),
you can make-up a second little batch to do the other ear. After
another four minutes, once that batch has gelled, you can mix
and pour the big batch that will fill the head. If you do not
do the ears separately, the material may not fill the ears properly,
and you will have trapped air bubbles there. This is just basic,
good molding and casting technique. It doesn't really have anything
in particular to do with the REDUCIT II material. Keep
in mind that the separate batches of REDUCIT II and may
not adhere to each other if more than twenty minutes elapses between
adjacent pours; so you will want to pre-measure all of your materials
so that you can move relatively quickly from the two separate
ear-pours to pouring the full head.
Both original REDUCIT and REDCUIT II can be poured
into ALGIFORM molds and maintain all of their detail. No
separator or release is necessary.
Mixing Instructions:
.Part B must be mixed well by shaking the container before
opening, then stirring well and scraping the bottom to bring the
white sediment into suspension. Then, before using, take a
piece of screening and strain Part B (the whitish liquid) so that
no white flakes end-up in your mix. This is very important.
.Part A of REDUCIT II has a very limited shelf-life.
The more air in the container, the shorter its useable life-span.
Always store Part A in a cool place to prevent crystallization.
If you use 20% or more of the material, it is always best if you
transfer the remainder into a smaller container so that there
is less air between the lid and the top of Part A; otherwise,
it will tend to gel or crystallize in a matter of just a week
or two. If your containers are well-sealed, with very little air
between Part A and the lid of the container, it could last longer.
You really should use it within two weeks.
.You have about four minutes of working time.
.DO NOT use a mixer attached to a drill unless you are mixing
a very large batch. Just mix with a spatula, pour into a second
container, and mix again.
.All castings must be poured solid.
.You can de-mold after one-and-one-half-hour.
.MIX RATIO: 1 Part "A" to 2 Parts "B",
by volume
.1-pint = 1-lb. 1-quart (2-pints) = 2-lbs.
Important: REDUCIT II is a urethane product. Skin contact with
the raw material should be avoided. Please wear protective gloves
and work in a well-ventilated area.
1.5-quart kit REDUCIT II ..................................$22.
3 -quart kit (3/4-gallon)REDUCIT II ..............$42.
1.5-gallon kit REDUCIT II ..........................$75.
3-gallon kit REDUCIT II .............................$140.