DIY Sculptamold

A bit of a quiet week this week, not so much to report. So instead I thought I'd share my recipe for DIY Sculptamold. This is a lumpy, lightweight paper and paster based material that holds its shape well. It is great for building up terrain, or filling in gaps around scenery.

You can buy a commercial product called Sculptamold, which is really quite excellent. Only it is quite hard to get ahold of here, I have only ever seen it on the shelves in a retail store once. So when my supply ran out, I decided to make my own.

Ingredients

Technique

  1. Grab some toilet paper and stick it in a mixing container. Add water and it will immediately start to break down into stringy paper pulp. Mix it up a bit. You want a small fistful.
  2. Squeeze out the excess water. It needs to be damp but not swimming.
  3. Squirt in your PVA glue if you want. This is entirely optional, just makes it taste a bit better.
  4. Add plaster. I suggest a few spoonfuls; enough that it changes consistency to look like lumpy plaster, with a slight grey colour.

Application

To apply, just trowel it on to the scenery. It can be worked with fingers without too much mess, or you can use a trowel. The more you squash it down, the harder it will set.

It takes quite a while to dry. The initial plaster reaction will quickly firm it up, but it can take up to a week for all the liquid to evaporate out of the paper. Once dry however it becomes quite hard, though this depends on how much you compacted it during application. The optional water based glue will help firm it up a bit too.

Once set, it can be painted, plastered over, etc without any ill effects. These scenery around the observatory is an example of some that I've built up using my DIY mix.

So there you go. Very quick to make up, and seems to work pretty well. Plus it costs barely nothing!

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Comments

Wednesday, Jan 31 2018, 11:21 AM Diego (from Genoa) says...
Hello, I have the same problem to make sculptamold supplies, can you, by any chance, tell me how is the ratio of the various ingredient for this recipe? Thank you very much in advance Regards Diego
Tuesday, Jun 19 2018, 10:28 AM says...
Friday, May 3 2019, 10:14 AM Blah (from Blahland) says...
Can you store it?
Saturday, Aug 3 2019, 7:05 PM says...
Can I use newspaper
Saturday, Aug 3 2019, 7:06 PM says...
Can I use newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 3 2020, 12:52 AM Jana (from Vienna) says...
Don't use newspaper. The ink might show
Sunday, Nov 15 2020, 2:21 AM Frank (from Melbourne) says...
Going to try newspaper, it can be painted if ink shows
Sunday, Dec 20 2020, 2:21 PM Rieke (from Germany) says...
What I found works quite well is the packing paper from online orders. The fibers are quite short, similar to toilet paper, so it already dissolves pretty well. I then use a hand blender to get it evern smaller.