finding a suitable core for coil among sealants
The next step for our coil evolution - making them heftier and more resilient to studio and composing wear and tear. Without losing the linear drawing in space feel, we also want to make them more sculptural.
Bathroom/window sealant became our medium for cores. We tried several. The one we went with cured the fastest, retained a nice rubbery feel and was the strongest when tugged on.
3 beads of DAP sealants - latex, non-silicon and silicon on wax paper.
Use freezer paper for the non-silicon sealant. On wax paper, it managed to melt a gouge in the insulation foam board without damaging the wax paper. Compare this photo taken 2 days after the one above when it was first squeezed out.
curing took a long time to be tack-free
the perfect sealant other than being a bit pricey
We tried 3 sealants - latex, non-silicon and silicon.
The latex bead at its fattest never really felt fully cured and stayed squishy soft. It seemed weak when tugged on.
The silicon didn’t offer any manipulation while still uncured. Just a recalcitrant stickiness. It also doesn’t feel very strong in its cured floppy ropey state. Afterall, it is designed to stick and fill a rigid surface.
The DAP Ultra Clear non-silicon worked best for a couple of reasons. We could more easily squeeze out a wonky, fat then thin bead. It’s somewhat workable when “wet.” It felt the strongest of the 3 when ready to wrap with abaca.
It also cured the quickest - about a week. After several days, we could remove it from its backing sheet. It felt strong enough to support its own weight, so we hung it up to finish curing more quickly. We wore nitrile gloves when handling it even after it seemed well cured and not tacky. We also kept the studio well ventilated.
We rolled the core up the same way as we did for the other (coreless) coils. We lay strips of wet abaca sheets attached end to end. Then, it’s one long rolling wrap, completely sealing the core.
comparing the first beefed up, hefty coil @ 3’ long and a coreless coil.
Wrapping the core with abaca
The next sealant core coil has a fork in it. We thought to mummy wrap it, but it was problematic. Even with a lot of overlap, it tended to hinge along the spiraling seam. We re-enforced several places, but the problem still remained elsewhere. Next time, we’ll go back to the longitudinal wrap and use it in several overlapping sections.
mummy wrapping the core requires a lot of overlap to keep the wrap stiff. apologies the clear sealant is hard to see.
We added in more elaborate fences, skewers and lengths of duct tape to keep the coil in its 3 dimensional pose as it dried.
We thought if we left some of the sealant uncovered it would give us a bending and stress-relieving point. We later covered it. We decided the coil was resilient without the “tendon” showing.
The 2nd sealant core coil. It’s about 5’ long and weighs maybe half a pound.
LandesSullivan at gmail.com