Commissions for Gloucestershire Constabulary

4 October, 2018 – 8:31 am

I was approached last year about designing and creating awards for Gloucestershire Constabulary Police Officers.

This was a very interesting proposal and obviously there was a restricted budget to take into consideration. We settled on the Gloucestershire Constabulary shield which is instantly recognisable. I soon realised that this would have been virtually impossible to carve in the size needed and to the budget.

I had recently been experimenting with a casting material called Jesmonite and decided to present a clay model of the shield which I would then cast.

The process was tricky as I needed to stamp the letters Gloucestershire Constabulary around the centre with letters only 5mm and not centralised on the stamp itself. I hadn’t actually been given the commission so didn’t have the budget to get the stamp professionally made.

Thankfully my sculpture training stood me in good stead and I was able to produce a lovely clay model. The design was approved but I still had to figure out how to make a mold to cast multiple copies. At college I’d only ever used hot rubber molds and I had the equipment so this is where I started.

The molds pulled away, bubbled and were just not creating the results I needed by this time I had some ok casts but they were by no means presentable and if I had to create multiples this way, I would have to re-carve each one making the commission financially impossible.

The clay model had been essentially fired in this process but was beginning to crack and there was no way that I could continue this method. I chose the best cast and re-carved it using my scalpel.

The master copy was perfect, next I had to research the best method to create the mold. I had a chat with my suppliers, South Western Plasters who I have been buying from for over 10 yrs. They were incredibly knowledgeable and very helpful. They recommended their Smartsil cold cure silicone rubber. It would be suitable for at least 50 casts and was reasonably affordable.

The cast and mold as you can see are just what we were looking for and so far I have produced 18 as awards for our hard working heroes.

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  1. One Response to “Commissions for Gloucestershire Constabulary”

  2. Nice work!
    you’ve got me looking up Jesmonite now

    By Graeme on Oct 5, 2018

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