Adventures in Casting

[M-bot]

PART ONE: IN WHICH I DISCOVER NEW THINGS AND TAKE TENTATIVE STEPS

I’m always keen to try out new things, expand my creative horizons and improve my craft. Casting parts (especially for Transformers) has felt to me like step too far - too complicated, too time consuming and too costly to be of benefit. When a few alternative products to the typical silicone/resin casting options became apparent to me, I thought I’d give them a try. Here’s a pic heavy dip into my first experiences.

(I’m stretching this thread out into several posts due to length, and I’ll update with more posts as I do more pieces or complete things)

Firstly, I discovered (via Facebook and this vdeo at http://www.plasticmodelsworld.com/node/1956 - plasticmodelsworld.com is a GREAT site for tips for customisers, beginners or advanced, TFs or anything else) a product called BLUE STUFF, which is a quick and easy way of making casts. I went to http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/ and purchased the smallest pack they had - 4 bars of 6g each - and it came to about $20 shipped (or thereabouts). I thought this was fair considering it is reusable, so hopefully a one off cost.

Some pics:



You work it by cutting it up and dropping it into hot water (it helped to have an electric kettle on hand) until it softens, you remove it and work it and press the piece you want to replicate into it. It starts to harden slowly over 5 minutes, but realistically you only have about 2 minutes before working the material becomes difficult. I ended up leaving it for 10 minutes before the Blue Stuff cools and hardens sufficiently to use.




Once it is cooled, you heat another piece of Blue Stuff and mould it over the top of the first piece with the object in situ. When the top lot has hardened, the 2 halves can be removed and gun removed. Once hardened, the Blue Stuff does not stick to anything, including the first half of the already hardened Blue Stuff, and leaves no residue or anything adverse on the object being cloned. It is flexible, and when bent it resumes its shape.

I let my kids play with my TR Rumble a while back and they lost his gun. I had TR Rewind, so I had an object worth replicating.





I also bought some more Milliput epoxy putty (superfine, white).

Stay tuned for more soon. I basically screw things up, should be entertaining...

[FatalityPitt]

This is cool. I'd love to get my hands on some Blue Stuff (or something similar). I'm not a serious customiser myself (I just paint at the moment), but if I ever wanted to create a custom figure from parts of other figures; the Blue Stuff and putty would save me from sacrificing another toy just for its parts.

[M-bot]

I'll post parts 2 and maybe 3 tonight, there's a lot more to come.

[M-bot]

PART TWO: IN WHICH I MAKE MISTAKES SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

The epoxy putty takes a good number of hours to set perfectly. I prised it open the following day and got this out:


Clearly, I had used too much putty in the mould, and it squeezed out of the sides. I was half expecting this, but not to this degree. I used way too much putty. Not only did it leave lots of flashing, but the 2 halves of the Blue Stuff mould wouldn’t press together well enough. Lessons learned.

Luckily, the putty is easily trimmed, cut and filed. The replication of tiny details is extraordinary with this stuff, provided the mould is made adequately.





You’ll notice the underside of the gun looks a little unfinished, but nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up a bit more. Also, the handle is a fraction off-centre, not ideal.

I did a fitting on the figure the gun is intended for. The handle is a tight fit. Obviously, this is a problem once the gun is repainted (red), due to paint rub.




So then, I tried to fit it in tank mode...



Bugger. One of the little prongs snapped clean off. Gluing it back on is not a good option, it would still be too weak. The epoxy putty has a big weakness here, in that it is reasonably strong but has no ‘give’ like the usual plastics the original gun is made of.

Decided to leave that one aside for a while and try something else. Project number 2 was a reproduction of one of the Targetmasters that came with Generations Scoop, to be used as a Targetmaster for TR Hotrod. Disassembled one of them and proceeded with the casting using Blue Stuff and epoxy putty using the same process as before, first with the arms, then the body.




And of course, I again used a bit too much epoxy. Heaps of flashing.



After clean up:



Not as clean as I would like. Some of the face sculpt was lost, and would take a bit of rebuilding, which I did on a few spots on the arms. I did file down and simplify a few of the details, not a big deal for me if it’s not a perfect copy. The ball joints on the epoxy arms are pretty cactus though. Not happy at all. I went ahead and ordered some small ball joints from eBay to install instead. But I decided to move on to something else in the meantime...

I found another new product, I have seen it advertised via a website http://www.plastimake.com but it’s fairly expensive. I found the same product for sale by a company that does cosplay outfits at Supanova for about 1/4 of the price that Plastimake are selling it for. I bought a couple of tubs for $20.

It works in a very similar way to the Blue Stuff, you put the little beads in hot water, they go from opaque white to clear and are mouldable. Looks like this:



I tried it out on something simple first, a MOTU axe (from Ram Man). I wanted to try making the 2 halves of the mould about the same size, with Plastimake (which is what I’ll call it, even though I didn’t get it from them) in both halves so I didn’t have so much of the flashing problem. Problem is, the Plastimake has a crazy quick setting time, you are lucky to have about 30 seconds to jam it into all the corners of the mould before it starts to harden to the point of being unworkable. The first 5 seconds of that are finger scalding straight out of the boiling water.



Four bits of positivity, firstly the detail is pretty good, the hardened Plastimake has a nice degree of flexibility as well as hardness, and unlike the epoxy, you have a result in a matter of minutes, and lastly if you don’t like the result, throw it back into the hot water and try again, so no waste. But the two parts of the Plastimake that were in the moulds did not play nicely together, as you can see.

Stand by for Part 3, in which things start getting better...

[FatalityPitt]

A shame about Rumble's gun.. It looks like the prong broke because the material was a bit too brittle. I'd probably use the Plastimake for that, since it's more flexible despite being a bit more expensive.

I think your targetmaster remake looks really cool! It may not be perfect as you said, but it looks really good for a first attempt.

[M-bot]

A shame about Rumble's gun.. It looks like the prong broke because the material was a bit too brittle. I'd probably use the Plastimake for that, since it's more flexible despite being a bit more expensive.

I think your targetmaster remake looks really cool! It may not be perfect as you said, but it looks really good for a first attempt.

There's more to come re Rumble's gun. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter!

[gamblor916]

That blue stuff looks interesting but tricky to use. Why don't you just use regular silicone and resin? I use Pinkysil from Barnes all the time for simple 1 part and 2 part moulds.

[Thurmus]

Can you make small one and two piece moulds with that? All the videos I have seen have been for bigger quantities than a gun or a small part.

I thought there was a minimum amount you had to use.

[M-bot]

That blue stuff looks interesting but tricky to use. Why don't you just use regular silicone and resin? I use Pinkysil from Barnes all the time for simple 1 part and 2 part moulds.

Cost and convenience. The Blue Stuff is actually quite easy to use, it just takes a bit of practice. Also, completely reusable. I have cast the Rumble gun, several pieces of the targetmaster, the MOTU axe and then the Rumble gun again, all with the same 2 6g bars (half of a $20 pack). And it shows no signs of deterioration with each use.

I might test the Blue Stuff with resin at some point.

Can you make small one and two piece moulds with that? All the videos I have seen have been for bigger quantities than a gun or a small part.

I thought there was a minimum amount you had to use.

Doesn't seem to mind smaller pieces at all.

[Deonasis]

I am enjoying this thread