Mold-A-Rama machines at the Henry Ford Museum

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a pop art gallery in Takayama, Japan called Tomenosuke Syoten. On display were some wax dinosaurs made by Mold-A-Rama machines. I followed up the post with a link to an article about Mold-A-Rama machines.

Days later, I came across a bunch of Mold-A-Rama machines when I was at the Henry Ford Museum for Maker Faire Detroit. The first one I spotted was next to the Weinermoble and, naturally, it made little models of the Weinermobile. I inserted two dollars into the machine and a minute later, I was the proud owner of a piping hot model Weinermobile.

After the jump, a video of the Mold-A-Rama machine in action, more photos of Mold-A-Rama machines, and an unfortunate bust of President Lincoln.

After admiring the graceful Weinermobile, I spotted the Mold-A-Rama against the wall and made a beeline for it.

I was so excited that I kept putting my dollar bills into the machine the wrong way. Lucky for you, I edited that part out of the following video.

Here's the model, cast in eye-scorchingly red wax.

For hours of fun, compare the model above to the real Weinermobile. Can you spot the differences - there are over 800!

I'm sorry I didn't get a model of Rosa Parks' bus.

My friend Joe bought a bust of President Lincoln.

This is how it came out of the machine. We suspect the machine was sabotaged by a descendent of John Wilkes Booth.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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spriggan

“…piping hot model Weinermobile”

Wasn’t Ron Jeremy in that?

Side note:
Dear universe, I would like mold-a-rama machines to make a comeback. It would be a nice comfort in this cold, disposable, digital world. Thanks
p.s. More penny smooshing machines too.
Anonymous

We are members of the Museum. Collected them all. They even have a Henry Ford figure, a Mustang car, and Rosa Park’s bus. The small is so amazing! Warm and smelly. Ah, good times, good times.
hep cat

I had a mold-a-rama Unisphere that went missing at about the same time as my complete set of outer limits cards in a suspicious room cleaning episode while I was away at camp or something like that. I’d love to have another mold-a-rama Unisphere.
Anonymous

I still have my LA Zoo pink parrot somewhere!
wagrella

Great article! I have a site dedicated to these guys, including a list of current locations where you can still find machines. Check it out.

http://www.moldamania.com/
hep cat

I had a mold-a-rama Unisphere that went missing at about the same time as my complete set of outer limits cards in a suspicious room cleaning episode while I was away at camp or something like that. I’d love to have another mold-a-rama Unisphere.
Anonymous

Not sure why this post claims they are made from wax, when they are clearly “colorful plastic”?
JohnnyQuest

Dang it, Mold-A-Rama, it was supposed to be Lincoln’s LEFT ear!

(Too soon?)

And I have to agree, it’s the smell…!

(Looking at my gorilla from the LA Zoo right now, hiding in the lowlands of my computer niche.)
Kozmund

I’m slightly disappointed that the post never mentions *why* there’s a Lincoln bust Mold-A-Rama machine…the Ford Museum has the chair from the Ford’s Theater that Lincoln was shot in.
Anonymous

I love these things too. I got a green alligator one from the Florida Everglades when I was 13. I am 33 now and still have that alligator on my bookshelves at my house.

I would totally get more types of these if I ever see the machines anywhere again.

.
Serene

I have never seen one of these, and now I want one in my living room!
ultrashag

I love that the Mold-a-Rama machines are getting some attention by BoingBoing. These are a staple of visits to the museums and zoos around Chicago. I have a collection of them going back 25+ years. The Wikipedia entry has a link to a Chicago Tribune article that gives a lot of back ground on the machines.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mold-A-Rama
Anonymous

Love, love, love!! I got a plastic castle at the Chicago Museum where they had the most beautiful Castle doll house when I was little. I didn’t know these machines still existed. So glad to see they do :-)
Anonymous

Abe looks a bit like the lion that kicks off Wonderfalls. Same machine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_Lion
- Anonymous
  
  That’s the exact same thing I was thinking of when I saw this post. Such a pity that show was canceled!
Anonymous

The village has even more Mold a rama machines! Sometimes they don’t make the prettiest of molds but if you ask an employee they more than likely have extras to give out.
politeruin

A tacky little plastic rosa parks bus?!

Seriously?

Is nothing sacred?

Eugh (for the second time today).
Anonymous

I got myself that very same Weinermobile no more than 3 weeks ago. It took everything I had not to get the 1964 1/2 Mustang too. Of course, it helps when you run out of dollar bills. Love the Henry Ford Museum!
Church

So, is this essentially a vacu-form machine?
- Anonymous
  
  If they are similar to the ones in the Museum of Science and Industry (in Chicago), it’s actually a blow molding machine, the same process that makes shampoo dispensers. A hollow plastic tube (called a parison) is trapped by the 2 molds. Air is then injected to inflate the plastic against the mold, making the form.
- Anonymous
  
  Nah! vacuuforming uses a vacuum table and hot sheet styrene, sucking it over a positive placed on the table. This is more like the injection mould process.
Anonymous

I sprung for the train too.
Anonymous

I work at The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and we still have four of these suckers up and running — a space shuttle, a tractor, the U-505 submarine, and a train. They have to get serviced every morning, as they’re quite fragile. And they HATE crumpled dollars.
folkclarinet

Oooohhh…I wish it were Smell-O-Vision! :)

And the Abe Lincoln is wonderfoul! (intentional typo)
Nicole

I just love that smell! As a kid I had a collection of animals from Busch Gardens. They have Mold-A-Rama machines at the Field Museum in Chicago.
- MadMolecule
  
  Nicole, I had a bunch of them from Busch Gardens as well; that machine was always the highlight of a trip for me, for some reason. Never mind the actual, living lions; I wanted a funny-smelling wax-lion.
AirPillo

I remember getting a little plastic eagle from one of those machines at the LA Zoo when I was a kid. I was surprised how the little statue continued to smell funny for a decade.
- Anonymous
  
  It was the same for me. I remember the smell and how hot it was when it came out of the machine. It’s the only thing I remember from the LA Zoo!
  
  -Shade W.
Anonymous

Just for the record, the Brookfield Zoo has them as well. I volunteer there, and I can confirm that they are a real draw. We always get updated lists of where they are, for when visitors ask where to find a specific animal. Last year, when the zoo had a dinosaur exhibit, we had special Mold-A-Ramas with prehistoric creatures too.
Anonymous

Mark, why didn’t you get one of each?! They are the most awesome things that I have seen!

Are the machines a permanent fixture at the museum?
- Scuba SM
  
  @Anon 6,
  
  Yes, they’re a permanent fixture at the museum. I believe there are 8 in all. A few years back I got a plastic 1965 Mustang.
  - Anonymous
    
    I have never even seen one of these machines before. Just done a further *google* search to find some more info on them. I think I have fallen in love with them. I’m surprised that the Science Museum in London does not display anything similar.
    
    I am familiar with the coin pressing machines that “press” a penny into an oval shape and emboss a logo on, but this old moulding technology is totally new to me :D
  - Anonymous
    
    There are 10 in all actually. I have a membership at the museum and visit there regularly.
Anonymous

They have a couple of these machines at the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford, FL.
yokimon

as others have said they have these at the Field Museum in Chicago. I got the green dinosaur when i was 14. I wonder if there are any in California?
jhhl

For many years, I had a molded rocket I made at the ’64-’65 World’s Fair. But its plastic fell apart just as described above! Also: early model Super Ball which cracked in an unusual way.
That Evening Sun

I remember getting a molded wax leaping dolphin from a machine at Marine Life aquarium in Gulfport, MS when I was a young whippersnapper.

Aesthetically, it wasn’t much to look at but it was an item that carried with it the magic of having been “created” before my eyes and without any more human effort than dropping a few coins in a slot.
Paranerd

The Museum of Science and Industry had a slew of these when I was there on field trips in the late 70s and early 80s. They had molds for several of their attractions (submarine, mammoth, etc).
xzzy

Field Museum in Chicago has a couple of these.. they make little dinosaurs. Associated with, as you might imagine, the dinosaur exhibit.

Were there as of a few years ago, haven’t been back recently.

It is pretty cool, but it uses some fairly low temperature plastic. After a couple years it seems to dry out, and it crumbles pretty easily if you mishandle it. I imagine if you left it in the car during summer you’d return to find a puddle.

I enjoy the penny smashers a lot more. Whenever the wife and I encounter one, we make sure to pay our 51 cents to make one. Is hard to get a cheaper souvenir.
Anonymous

I can’t imagine working at The Henry Ford without the comforting hum of the Mold A Ramas in the background. We also try to get limited edition molds to tie in with exhibits, IMAX movies, etc. Favorites have been a blue train for Polar Express and an alien that hadn’t been used since the 1960s.
atomocom

>>Church
> So, is this essentially a vacu-form machine?

Actually, it’s a blow-molding machine.

Vacu-form stretches a piece of sheet-plastic over a “positive” shape, under vacuum.

Blow molding injects a blob of molten plastic into a “negative” mold, and then fills the interior of the blob with pressurized air.
- drkptt
  
  I think technically it’s gas-assist injection molding, in which gas pushes excess molten material out, leaving a hollow center. Blow molding requires a preform (parison), a hollow tube inserted on a core rod that is inflated against the walls of the mold.
Anonymous

1969, Florida Turnpike rest stop.
Anonymous

anyone remember the Shell Factory down in south Florida?
They had them that made jumping dolphins etc.
Anonymous

I did one as a child at the San Antonio Zoo. Can’t remember what it was though. But then I went back as a teenager and did a Koala Bear mom and baby. I wish I still had it!
Anonymous

The wienermobile is strangely erotic.
AlmostLucy

I worked as a high school student volunteer at the LA Zoo from 2004-2007, and there were still at least five Mold-A-Rama machines then. While I haven’t been back since I graduated, I certainly saw them in regular use not long ago.

I never had any as a young kid, but I did treat myself to one (a green alligator if I remember correctly) to commemorate finishing the taxonomy class and becoming a volunteer.
Pipenta

I had a brontosaurus I got at the Sinclair exhibit at the ’67 (I think) World’s Fair in NY. And I had a leaping dolphin, and my brother got a sailfish from some sixties era Florida vacation.

But I want a wienermobile. I WANT ONE! Only it should smell like wax n’ wiener!
ROSSINDETROIT

Face it: anything ‘A-RAMA’ with a perspex bubble covering the works is cool by definition. Add the Wienermobile and it’s a hat trick of wonderfulness.
discontinuuity

I wonder how hard it would be to do lost wax casting with one of these models and end up with a metal copy.