I purchased an item that I used as pattern for casting a product. The material is satin black ceramics. Unfortunately, it will not extract from the plaster whole so I need to destroy it. Can anyone recommend something that will easily dissolve the powder? Manual extraction may damage the mold.
What are you trying to achieve exactly ? Your post reads as if you wanted to dissolve a rock-solid ceramics object while leaving brittle, water-soluble plaster intact ?
My objective was to create a reusable mold to cast parts in resin. I would've liked to keep the ceramic pattern but the two are are nearly fused together. I tested a portion of the plaster (speciality plaster not plaster of Paris). I could chip the ceramic away but it's slow and may damage the crucial parts of the mold. I would like to know what would wash it away.
It sounds as if your pattern has undercuts. If this is so, then even if you could take it out of the mould you wouldn't be able take the mouldings unless you were casting rubber.
Not doable with readily available chemicals - and the really nasty stuff would not spare your speciality plaster (nor you).
I need to present the mold for my final project . I was going to attempt to cast in resin but I could forget it if the mold was cleaned out and presentable looking.
Can you recommend something that might soften the material up? I am removing it with a dremel and it's tedious work with the chance of damaging the plaster.
You are just wasting your time. Plaster is not the material you should be using to make moulds for resin. Resins need to be cast into silicone rubber. The best thing you could do is to break the mould off you ceramic piece and start again. If you search on the internet you can find recipes for converting cheap silicone caulking into something that can be used to make the mould from. But don't forget that whatever you use for you mould it will need some sort of release agent a/ to stop the mould sticking to the pattern and b/ to stop the castings sticking to the mould.