Duplicating Antique Wood Moldings

Carrie from Hawthorne Street shared with a great how-to for making replicas of antique moldings. One of the challenges of restoring an older home is finding original details or re-creating them. Replacing wood elements is extremely difficult and many times cost prohibitive but if you've have existing pieces to create a mold you are halfway there.

   

From Hawthorne Street:

Our house was missing two pieces of an ornate carving when we moved in. It'd be all-but-impossible to find an identical replacement, short of stealing one from a neighbor. So I called Van Dyke's Restorers and asked if they sold anything I could use to create a mold. Yes. Yes, they did.

I needed two products: Silputty, which allows you to make a (negative) mold of the wood piece. And Por-A-Kast, the stuff you pour into the mold to make a (positive) replica.