u/BorboroForge

She brought me out of a 10-year creative drought and has inspired and aided my art for over a year now. Hail Hekate!

I've been casting for a while now with little issue. I ordered 50 lbs of 140-mesh Petrobond from a well-known supplier I've had no issue with before. When it arrived, it seemed really dry and fluffy. It wouldn't pack well or stick together at all. It was basically unusable. I read that adding mineral oil would revive it. I added too much at first, and it was way too sticky. I threw in more dry sand to try to balance it, but it still won't separate cleanly.

I'm using the same talc, flasks, and negatives I've been casting for years, with no issue at all. The only thing that's changed is the sand. I was using Petrobond previously as well, although I'm not sure of the mesh.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? I have so much of it.

EDIT: Problem solved by u/sdan74d & u/SnooLentils5747 who suggested adding a solevant or activator. I used isopropyl alcohol, and it totally turned things around. My biggest thanks to the community for helping me save another $150 on new sand. You guys rock!

I put together a small PGM pronunciation project on my site for anyone curious. Enter your PGM text and get back the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and phonetic pronunciation. It works with both English transliterations and direct Greek.

If you're not familiar, the Greek Magical Papyri are ancient Greco-Egyptian spell texts, many of which invoke or involve Hekate.

This is a best-effort approximation using reconstructed historical linguistics. There's no single correct pronunciation for most of this material; it varies by time, place, and practitioner, and we're dealing with educated guesses layered on incomplete evidence either way.

Sharing it as a useful reference, not an authority. Especially relevant for spaces like r/hecate where these texts are living practice, not just academic material.

Corrections from people deeper in it are welcome.

I make these completely by hand from start to finish. I forge the bowl from sheet metal, draw the design directly onto the metal with Sharpie marker, then etch in acid and darken with the smelliest liver of sulfur solution. The whole thing feels a little like alchemy.

Praise to Hekate Ἔκδοτις for pulling me back into art after years away from it. I also swear there are little shop spirits in there helping guide me.

Just practicing skulls and made a little kubaton thing.