Imperial Creative Engineering > Custom Questions

Molding & Casting - Making Molds & Casting Parts and Accessories

<< < (2/6) > >>

Darth More:
Be sure to check out the latest castings of RCWCreations using this technique:

http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10243.msg214915#msg214915


I think the results turned out excellently!

Don:
Thanks for sharing.

I tried some casting about 10 years ago, and had some predictably terrible results. I'd imagine that with practice I'd see improvements, but the supplies are expensive, the process is time consuming, and I was discouraged by my results. So I never went back to it.
I'm glad other people are doing it because I've been able to get some cool parts, and great custom heads, from hobbyist casters. So keep it up!

Darth More:
Chuckles: You're very welcome! Thanks for coming by! It is a lot of work and quite expensive to begin with. But if you are willing to spend that money it brings many advantages. Casting with resin is quite cheap, but yet again a hell lot of work, ets quite messy and isn't that healthy as well...

Darth More:
So the first entry on this thread was about impression putty, which you can actually re-use. Let's move on to non-reversible putties, which are more durable and can be more precise, too. There are many parts & pieces that can only be produced and reproduced with a 2-part-mold. In this post I show you how I make such molds & casts.





At the moment I'm working on three customs of General Grievous. If you get the TLC/TVC Grievous used, the chest and/or shoulder pieces are often missing. I got two figures of Grievous that need to be completed. I took the occasion to show you how I do it.




If you want to see what I did with this TLC General Grievous click here!

I think the comparison to what happens in nature is quite handy here. Impressions are preserved by sediments, pressure and quite some time...

I do not own this image. All rights belong to Prof. Blume and his publication: The chemistry of fossils
URL: https://www.chemieunterricht.de/dc2/fossil/pos-neg.htm


The original part is removed carefully to avoid damage to part and mold. You can use epoxy putties like milliput or similar ones like Apoxy. milliput is quite hard so you need to knead it real intensively to make it as soft as it can get. But you might know softer putties that are more suitable for this task.




I got this G.I. Joe rifle with a fodder set and only got it once - so I wanted to dublicate it for a while now to assign it to an Airborne Trooper or my latest Clone custom:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10513.msg218114#msg218114

 


You can use rubber bands to keep the molds under pressure while the putty cures inside. Milliput takes about 3 hours to harden and another 2 hours to cure. I cannot recommend to use it for making molds - and it's suitable to be used for casts to a limited extend. It's just to hard even when it's not yet cured. Need to try other alternatives like Apoxy when I'm over in the U.S. the next time.




Comment:

I used to work with this putty during my apprenticeship almost on a daily basis. It's extra crazy expensive because it's for the dental/medical field. This box of putty and activator costs 50€. I got both for 30€ because I'm a student now. All molds I made with it on my latest run yesterday were all good right away - so no waist here. Depending on the original part's shape you can use those molds several times (like the rifle). But Grievous' chest plate and the Jet backpack left some damage to the mold when I removed the cast. So be prepared for some loss of detail when you work with these putties and use them more than once.

Got any questions left? Let me know!


- Philipp

Tamer:
Looks like you got some great parts out of these. I hope you get to use em a bit more before they deterioriate. Nice work.

Off to the front pages.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page