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Hi, casting some custom parts up for the first time. I used to make Prince August minis back in the day, but the moulds came pre-made and you heated ingots on the stove... ahh, good days! :-) Anyway, I'm making my own from my sculpts and trying resin this time.

So, onto my problem. The first half of the silicone mould itself worked fine, no bubbles in the detail due to a LOT of tapping on the mould by me!

Problem is, the clay I used to set the parts in is fething AWFUL, and has made a right sticky, blue mess. Ruined the mould to be honest, and the parts will need a lot of cleanup before I can reattempt. It's a lost cause, but at least I'm only a small amount of silicone down. I expected some teething issues!

What's the best clay (available in/to the UK) that I could use to avoid this sticky, stainy hell??? Something that will be workable, but easy to remove from mould/parts. The stuff I tried is called Newplast, so avoid it if you were considering it.

Is sculpey available in the UK? It's what I use. Sculpey is a relatively hard, dry, oven-bake clay. Worst I've had it do is leave a slightly oily residue behind. It's not dirt cheap but neither is it super expensive.

Try Chavant NSP Sulphur free, easily workable, little or no residue. It is used by modellers to make masters but workss great to hold models in place for mould making.

I get 2lb blocks from Tiranti.co.uk but it's available on eBay and a search on google will find other sellers.

Cheers guys!