For this project, I'm going to show you how to make Proto-Putty. “Proto-Putty”s a
cool moldable dough you can press into nearly any shape, but after 10 minutes, it magically
turns, to rubber. Bouncy, stretchy rubber.
All your need for this project is a box of food coloring, a tub of cornstarch, and a
tube of 100% silicone.
It’s extremely important you get silicone #1, and you’ll be able to confirm that’s
what it is, by looking at the top of the tube.
While you’re here, double-check your tube is marked 100% silicone as well, just to be
sure.
Now to minimize the mess we’re about to make, it’s going to be helpful to have two
disposable paper bowls on hand.
Grab some food coloring and squirt a generous amount into one of the bowls, remembering
that the more you use, the richer your “Proto-Putty” color will become.
The silicone caulking goes in next, so carefully squeeze a big blob of it directly into the
food coloring, until you feel like you’ve got enough.
Keep in mind that Silicone #1 releases “acetic acid” vapors while curing, and smells so
strongly of vinegar that it’ll make your nostrils sting. So you might want to think
about mixing this up outside, or at least in a well ventilated area.
Use something like a popsicle stick to slowly fold the silicone and food coloring together,
and make sure you don’t mix it too quickly or it might splash out and stain your clothes.
You’ll be able to tell when the two components are combined, because they blend nicely into
a solid, and uniform color.
Now it’s important to note that as soon as the food coloring is mixed the clock is
ticking, and we’ve only got about 10 minutes of work time before this all starts hardening
up. But the problem is, this stuff is ridiculously sticky and extremely difficult to work with.
But if you drop the blob into a big bowl of cornstarch, then generously coat the outside
with powder, the silicone becomes a lot easier to deal with, because the powder prevents
it from sticking to anything.
Now if you don’t want to turn your hands different colors or end up with super sticky
fingers, now is the time to put on a pair of disposable gloves.
Of course gloves are optional for anyone feeling adventurous, but you may regret not using
them. Just saying.
Flatten the silicone blob down into the cornstarch, then flip it over a few times, kneading it
into different shapes, and repeating the process about ten to fifteen times.
This will help tame the sticky nature of the mess and make it a lot more manageable to
work with.
If any part of the silicone starts feeling sticky again, just coat it with more cornstarch,
and repeat the process until it losses all of it’s tackiness.
After around two minutes of kneading the cornstarch in, the color of your silicone putty should
brighten back up and start feeling a lot like like Play-doh.
When it’s thoroughly mixed to the point where it doesn't stick to your hands anymore,
the “Proto-Putty” is finished, and ready for immediate use.
You can mold it, squish it, or press it into whatever shape you want.
Just remember, you’ve only got 5 - 10 minutes of work time before it turns to rubber. So
whatever you’re doing, make sure you do it quickly.
I tried making impressions of some stackable plastic bricks, and you can see that after
only 15 minutes the rubber is already so stiff we can pull it out of the mold.
Popping the bricks out, you can see they’ve left a perfect impression in the putty, and
created a fun little mold that looks remarkably similar to kind I made in a previous video.
The final product is extremely stretchy, very rubbery and amazingly durable as well.
Now this idea works because general purpose silicone, is activated by moisture.
So by blending in a generous amount of food coloring, the silicone gets triggered, and
instantly begins the curing process.
Just for fun I squished up a ball a left-over putty, and watched it harden into an interesting
ergonomic stress ball made just for me.
Perhaps this would be a quick and easy way to make a custom pair of rubber handle grips.
Now if you want to have even more fun with your “Proto-Putty”, try mixing a batch
with “Neon” food coloring instead.
I used “Neon Green” to make a batch, and pressed it over an acrylic mold I designed
for a different project, then gently wrapped the edges up around the sides to let it set.
20 minutes later you can see the rubber has cured, and we’ve got ourselves a cool little
mold for making custom bars of soap.
I formed another chunk into a hook shape, and pressed it onto my wall, to make an improvised
key hook for hanging car keys.
I made a clip for my workbench to prevent power cables from pulling out of place.
And I even tried wrapping some around a fork, to make an ergonomic handle grip, that fits
the shape of my hand perfectly.
Now I was curious to see what the “Proto-Putty” would do if we didn’t use any cornstarch
at all, so I whipped up another big batch and slopped it straight into the mold.
Surprisingly, it still only took about twenty minutes to completely set up, into a version
even stretchier, and perhaps even more durable and resilient than it was before.
The problem is that without cornstarch, it’s difficult to work with, and really hard to
remove air bubbles trapped at the bottom.
Now check this out. If you want to fuse two of your rubber creations together, all you
need is a dab of fresh “Proto-Putty” to bind them.
Press the pieces together, let the putty cure, and just like that, the two, have become one.
“Proto-Putty” is a fun rubber that’s surprisingly bouncy, which means you can make
rubber toys, roll your own bouncy balls, or make just about anything else you can think
of.
I tried rolling a piece of yellow putty into a loop, and turned it into a custom silicone
wristband.
Then pressed another piece into a taco shape, which made a custom rubber base for watching
movies on my smartphone.
This quick and dirty pinch pot is great for storing paper clips at the office, and I even
tried making a screw-on lid for Mason jars. Which is easy to use, and surprisingly watertight
as well.
“Proto-Putty” is fairly stretchy in general, but the thicker you make it, the more durable
it’s going to be.
It works great for impression casting, like making half-molds of little glass bottles,
but if you’re tempted to use it for making custom candy molds, you might want to reconsider.
Construction Silicone can be harmful if swallowed, and can cause serious side effects if it gets
inside your body.
So rather than using it to make candy molds, it’s probably better to just make toys,
crayons, or little rubber erasers instead.
Well now you know how to use a few simple, and very common materials, to make huge batches
of “Proto-Putty” on a budget.
So you can channel your power of creation, and make anything you want.
By the way, there’s a different kind of “Food Grade” silicone you can use for
making candies, and I’ll put a link in the description to where you can find it.
Well that’s it for now. If you liked this project, perhaps you’ll like some of my
others.
Check them out at www.thekingofrandom.com