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Mold-a-Rama Machines Still Alive and Kicking
theodp writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that bubble-topped Mold-a-Rama machines are still delighting folks, cranking out kitschy get-em-while-they're-hot plastic Abe Lincoln busts, triceratops, and charging rhinos. Some vintage figures are commanding over $150 on eBay — a Paul Bunyan figure from a Minnesota machine no longer in operation recently fetched $210."
Buwahahahahah!
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
The age of new media that was so greatly proclaimed in the early days of the internet eventually turned out to be news stories with plain text and NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PICTURE of the thing they were talking about. NOT ONE SINGLE FUCKING IMAGE of a 'Mold-a-rama' machine.
No, I'm not googling for an image. The story should include an image or three, one of the machine, one of an expensive bit of plastic from a long time ago, and another of a new bit of plastic.
Get with the technology. People demand visual satisfaction. No wonder everyone eventually ends up looking at porn online. Visual Satisfaction.
As the article notes, they have them at the Henry Ford Museum.
I have Abe Lincoln's head (the museum has the chair he was sitting in when he was shot), a figure of Henry Ford and a locomotive.
I think they also have machines that make the Wienermobile and other museum attractions as well.
Not the best reason to check the place out, but HFM and Greenfield Village are great places to go. It is an amazing and sometimes weird collection of the industrial era.
Old technology proves a modern-day classic
By Eric Benderoff
Published September 4, 2006
One of my favorite things in the technology universe doesn't surf the Web or plug into your ears. The end result doesn't do anything actually, yet the process has thrilled millions of people for four decades.
Odds are strong that if you've visited a zoo or museum since the Johnson administration, you've bought at least one of the delightfully kitschy and colorful products these bubble-topped time machines create: an Abe Lincoln bust, a triceratops or a charging rhino.
The best part is they look the same today as they did back when Elvis ruled Las Vegas. Perhaps better, at $1.50 a pop they remain the most affordable souvenirs one can buy during an afternoon marveling at elephants or a World War II-era submarine at the Field Museum.
The Mold-a-Rama machine still delights because you watch the made-on-the-spot process before gingerly picking up your still-warm memento.
I bought five Mold-a-Rama creations this summer, an elephant and rhino from a recent trip to Brookfield Zoo and three dinosaurs from a visit to the Field Museum.
"The Field Museum is all dinosaurs. We used to have a gorilla mold there, but it wasn't selling very well, so we turned it into a T-Rex mold," said Bill Jones, who, with his two sons, keeps the 21 Mold-a-Ramas in the Chicago area humming. (A gorilla from the Field Museum recently sold for $85 on eBay, by the way.)
Keeping the machines working is no small feat, considering a Mold-a-Rama machine hasn't been built in 40 years.
There are 11 Mold-a-Ramas at Brookfield Zoo, two at the Lincoln Park Zoo, four at the Field Museum and four at the Museum of Science Industry, where you can buy Bill's favorite, a replica of the U-505 submarine.
The William A. Jones Co., based out of Bill's home in Brookfield, operates 68 Mold-a-Rama machines across the Midwest and in Texas. You can buy a bat mold at the Milwaukee County Zoo, a Komodo dragon in San Antonio or an "antique car" at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
"We couldn't do a Model A or a Model T, so it's a combination," said Bill, who got into the business in 1969. "I thought the machines were 40 years old then."
As the end of summer looms this Labor Day, the efforts of a 70-year-old man who gets to the Field Museum before 6:30 a.m. once a week to make sure a toddler and his dad still can enjoy the spectacle of making a plastic T-Rex should be applauded.
"We'll all be working Monday," said Paul Jones, Bill's 40-year-old son. "We just don't know where yet."
The charm of the Mold-a-Rama is its mesmerizing and simple technology. In the left-hand corner of each machine, you see the mold each makes. If you want one, and Bill figures roughly one of every 10 people who pass a Mold-a-Rama do, you pop your money in to activate the machine.
Four hydraulic cams start to move. The first and last closes the two sides of the mold together. Then another cam pushes plastic between the molds, followed by one that blows hot air in to make the figure hollow. Coolant then chills the mold because the figure was cooked between 225 and 250 degrees.
After roughly a minute, the two sides of the mold open, revealing your dinosaur or dolphin, before the final cam, that operates the scrapper, pushes your mold forward and drops it into the holding bin. But you need to wait a moment: It is still too hot to pick up right away, as my son always warns.
The dolphin at Brookfield Zoo is Jones' top producer.
"It outsells everything," he said, noting that machine produced 350 molds in one day during the height of summer.
Across the country, there are 130 machines working at 28 locations, said avid Mold-a-Rama collector Brennan Murphy, who owns 600 to 700 of the figures.
Murphy, 45, who grew up in Riverside but now lives in Florida, has 30 different colored T-Rex molds.
"The colors are different than the ones today," he said.
A Paul Bunyan figure f
You know what they say.. One man's trash in the hand is worth $200 on eBay.
Or something like that.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Found an image on Flikr there are some closeup shots of the insides as well. I'd never heard about these things before (coming from the UK) and this article piqued my interest.
I am NaN
wonder what a smoosh-faced wax lion goes for...
Mold-A-Rama is more than a cheap souvenir, it's a minute-long event. The noise, holding them upside down, the almost-too-hot plastic, the smell...they're a flash to childhood that only costs $1.
Just as long as the lion with the smooshed face doesn't start talking to me...
This guy's the limit!
Heck, make your own! So what would a CmdrTaco go for in a few years?
Should modify them to mold chocolate...
They still have the machines at the San Antonio Zoo. I think the smell of hot wax is supposed to offset the animal smells or something. It was a lot of fun getting one of those wax castings as a kid. The best part is watching it get made. You put in your money, then you get to watch the two halves of the metal mold come together and get filled with hot wax. after a couple of minutes, it pops out your wax bear, giraffe, lion, elephant, etc. - still warm. You had to hold it just so to allow it to cool and finish hardening without burning your little fingers. What fun!
"Oh, say, can you see by the dawnzer lee light," sang Miss Binney
I remember watching a Mold-A-Rama make me a yellow Space Needle when my parents took me to the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. I was 5 or 6 years old at the time. My big sister got an orange Space Needle. For some reason this memory is as strong or stronger than actually riding the elevator to the top of the real Space Needle, or any other memory I have of the fair. I remember the smell, the hot plastic that had to cool upside down, and the seemingly interminable wait while the machine did its thing.
My Space Needle got thown away some years later, and though it would be nice to have one now, it wouldn't be worth $150 to me. $5.00, maybe...