Models like clay, tools like plastic, finishes like wax.™

A Sculpting Revolution

Cx5 is a premium sculpting material designed to be used in place of sculpting clays, finish waxes, and prototyping plastics. It handles like clay when warm, finishes like wax, and is as hard as plastic when cool. Cx5 is the ideal material for every stage of your project, from roughing out and building up, to adding fine details, machined features and a high polish.

Applications

Prototypes - Cx5 is a versatile building material at all temperatures

  • Cast Cx5 into base forms (blocks, rods, and sheets) for any machining operation
  • Machine all the parts for your prototype in a material that can be modified both subractively and additively
  • Join pieces with no glue, making perfect interfaces
  • Brush Cx5 onto foam, plastic, metal, wood, and other materials to modify existing objects
  • Use as a glue / filler to both fill and smooth out forms
  • Prime and paint your prototype for "looks-like" models, mold and cast for "works-like" models

Traditional Sculpture - Cx5 is the ideal material for figurative sculptors, for every stage of the sculpting process

  • Perfect for quickly roughing out a figure - sculpt from life with no need to plan out your pose in advance
  • View your work from all angles, holding the sculpture in you hand, freed from restrictive armatures and supporting boards and pipes
  • Reposition the figure during sculpting, or with heat after the sculpture has fully cooled
  • Easy to handle without disturbing forms soon after beginning sculpting
  • Ideal for sculpting high levels of detail, polish, or texture

Action Figures - Perfect for the specific needs of toy sculptors

  • Model high-tolerance parts that fit together
  • Cx5 is the ideal material for creating flowing fabric capes
  • Easy to cut apart and mold pieces separately

How Does it Work?

Cx5 is a temperature sensitive material that behaves like clay, wax, plastic, and even paint at different temperatures. Because it can be used for every stage of sculpting it eliminates the need to begin your sculpture in a clay, create a waste mold, and pour a wax for final detailing.

Do all your work, from start to finish, in just Cx5.

First, rough out your sculpture in warm Cx5 without the need for an armature. Then, fine tune the details using both traditional and hot tools. When your sculpture has cooled completely, sand or polish the surface for a perfect finish. Any sculpture in Cx5 can be cut apart and molded using traditional mold materials, and then melted down and reused for your next project.

Features

  • Light, strong, and self supporting at all sizes - sculpt without an armature
  • Low working temperature - 125°F is ideal for modeling
  • High opacity and cool, gray color lend extreme clarity to forms and shadows
  • Infinitely changeable - add material or reposition at any stage of sculpting
  • Reusable - never dries out or cracks
  • Melts to the consistency of house paint - brush onto foam, plastic, existing clay sculptures, etc.
  • Produces perfect bubble free castings in rubber, plastic and metal molds
  • Superior finishing properties to modern waxes
  • Machinable at low speed or slow feed, or with water as a cutting fluid
  • Durable - file, hot sand, wet sand, cut, saw and drill
  • Mold easily with various materials

A Responsible Material

Cx5 is proudly manufactured in the United States by Adam Beane Industries and is non-toxic and all natural. 

How to Use Cx5

For sculpting, heat Cx5 in an electric skillet, slow cooker, double boiler, under a lamp or in a microwave. Cx5 is warm and ready to model at 125°F. Sculpt by creating a base shape and adding warm Cx5 onto it. For best cohesion, heat sections of your sculpture over an alcohol lamp (using denatured alcohol only) before adding more warm Cx5. Use traditional loop tools, rakes, etc. with metal tips, and metal sculpting tools heated over an alcohol lamp to define large forms. Heat 3M Softback Sanding sponges over an alcohol lamp (never allow them to smoke) and use them to smooth the contours of the piece. Use a waxer with different tips for moving large amounts of material, and for doing detail work. 

For machining, cast Cx5 into base forms (blocks, rods, and sheets) and allow it to cool. Machine at slow speed or slow feed, or with water as a cutting fluid. 

To finish your piece, file, wet sand, solvent sand, or polish it. Mold as a single piece, or cut your sculpture apart for molding in sections. Cast your sculpture in a final material, like plastic, and re-use the Cx5 for another project, or save your original Cx5 sculpture - it will has an indefinite shelf life, as opposed to the limited shelf lives of rubber molds. 

Check out the tools we recommend for working in Cx5.

Tutorial Videos

For detailed instruction on these techniques and others, consider the first video in the Sculpting Tutorial Series - Working in Cx5: an introduction to materials, tools & techniques.