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...