Breaking the Mould

Today

A mobile bodyshop  business was set up under a little pointy-roofed pavilion in the Close today. As I walked past I breathed in deeply. "Ah! the smell of fibreglass resin!" I cried "That takes me back!"

In My Day

When I applied to do theatre design at the West Sussex College of Design in Worthing I had many romantic notions. However the course offered was far from romantic; training was strictly practical.

We were early on initiated into the secrets of scenery and prop manufacture. This often involved the use of fibreglass resin. There were several stages to the process. First you had to model what you wanted in a temporary material, such as papier mache. This was a challenging and messy job and you found yourself peeling bits of hardened paper off your clothing for weeks afterwards.

Next you made a plaster cast of the object. This gave you the item in inverse, so to speak and could take quite a while to harden.

Finally, when it was quite hard, you opened large packs of glass fibre and pushed it into the mould, following this with liquid resin. This resin had a strong and, well, resinous smell and had the effect of softening the glass fibres which could then be pushed into all the crevices in the mould. Without the glass fibre, the resin would be too brittle. This set reasonably quickly, when it could be removed and the mould used again as often as you liked. This job left myriad tiny cuts all over your hands and completely ruined them. 

Using this technique, the Connaught Theatre in Worthing produced a whole forest of trees for "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I spent hours helping with this; including applying lots of thick greeny-grey paint afterwards. I can't remember whether the result looked any good.

I wonder if they still use these techniques in modern theatres. Actually, I just found this site:
http://www.ehow.com/about_4672663_fiberglass-moldmaking.html .......