Hirst casting tryouts

Hiring children to do the work proves much cheaper,
and they can be bullied into working unpaid overtime easily

We had a few casting tests today, with the help of my son and daughter, to establish how many hirst silicon moulds one can cast per unit of time.  The tests pointed out that the speed I could reach very much depends on the number of moulds available.  At one time, I had 7 moulds 'in the air' at once.  That was doable, I would say I could manage to keep 10 moulds busy.  Depending on turnaround time, and therefore drying time, I could do 2 to 2,5 rounds per hour.  Some of the things I found:

1. Setting up took me about 45 minutes.  This will be the same for one person doing 3 moulds or 4 persons doing 40 moulds so organization is essential.
2. We need more mixing bowls: it is a very bad idea to rinse your mixing bowl in the sink, you have to let the plaster set and then remove it.  For one person, 5 mixing bowls is a good number.  Luckily, these are dead cheap.
3. It took me over one hour to clean up.  This will also be required after every cast, so it would be best to try and organize big casting sessions.

The homemade vibration board worked VERY well, so that's going to stay.  I have a nice setup in mind, with one person making the mixture, one scraper, one unpacker and one all-round, and that should allow to make lots of casts in the course of an afternoon or so.