Working with Corian

Turns out that it actually does work well in making a mold. The problem is getting it out of the mold in one piece. My test mold was an oval shape with my last name down the middle, all curved and blurred. I only cut it at an 1/8" deep. Melted the candy bar, poured into the mold, refrigerated it, and the first mold piece broke all apart. I then froze it and the second one came out in pieces, but came out. I then put the corian on top of a hot pot of water and let it sit a minute or so. The piece came out perfect except for the fact that it was too thin and one piece broke off. The rest was perfect. So I will try again later with a deeper cut mold to see if I can get the result that I want.

Hint: you got to be really desperate (crazy) for something to do on this idea, otherwise it wouldn't be worth the time.

The one thing that has concerned me about working with corian is in the final shaping of the piece, the cutting of the edges for example. Having never worked with corian in the past, I decided to try trimming some rough edges off my latest piece (which didn't come out quite right so it's scrap), and found that you really can treat corian almost like wood. I ran four sides through my table saw today with the standard rough cut blade that was on the saw, the results were much better than I had expected. I fed the piece extremely slowing into the saw, and the edges came out remarkably smooth with only a little sanding required.

I've also found out that you can sand this with a 220 grit and get a nice smooth surface, just as you would wood.

For those of you who would like a "stone" piece carved on your 1013, this is an excellent option. I bought my 10 x 13 inch pieces off ebay, $6 apiece with free shipping. There are a lot of sizes available on ebay, you just have to be patient to find what you want. Or find a good cabinetry shop that does counter tops, these pieces are often the piece cut out for a sink.