[WM-10mm] Casting

[industrialtrousers]

Howdy

I've got ahead of myself and bought some silicone rubber and resin for casting before I've got anything to cast.

The idea was that I would model some ranked beastmen and then cast them up.

I'll give it a go when I get a clear weekend but does anyone have any experience of casting in resin at 10mm? Does it work out OK or am I going to be wasting both my time and resin?

To be honest I'll probably try something a bit larger like a wall section first but figured this would be the place to ask if anyone had tried it.

Cheers
P

[MaWo79]

Hey. That sounds interesting. Do you have any experience in casting in resin?

I once was a "crazy caster" myself. I casted almost everything that I needed, except the core units. I only bought GW stuff to create the molds and resold the originals afterwards. That was in my "f*** you GW" time. It was pretty satisfying being able to build loads of Ork Gargbots for me and my friends, without shoving one single cent into GW's throat or having an endless amount of giant rats for my Skaven army, without buying those ridiculous small an overpriced rat pack boxes. Well, honestly all the additional work never really compensated the saved money. But hey. It felt so darn good to be independent.

I can't say if it works well for 10mm figures. It depends on different factors. Resin is excellent for casting high details. Standard resin is very hard but it is also very brittle. That makes casting thin and fragile elements, like long spears and stuff, very difficult. They are generally prone to break. I know that there is more flexible resin available but I never found anything comparable to plastic or white metal. I highly recommend making two sided molds. That reduces the damage to the molds and the cast and makes removing the cast easier. One big problem is pouring the resin into the mold without any bubbles. Make sure the resin reaches even he last corner of your mold. That's even harder the more complex and detailed your figures are. I had a method that helped me reducing bubbles to almost zero. I brushed the first layer of resin with a small old brush into the mold, covering all the fine details and fragile parts. I let the first layer harden a little bit. Not too much, only to make sure that the resin stays in place and doesn't flow. Then I put the two sided molds together and filled it with fresh resin.

I'd say give it a try since you have the silicone ant he resin anyway. I'd love to see the progress.

[industrialtrousers]

Great stuff MaWo. No experience whatsoever as yet and I traditionally learn the hard way. I'll crack on with getting a few walls knocked up in sculpey over the next week and a test run before trying the finer stuff. The only promise I can make here is progress will be slow.

I had a vague idea when I bought the casting kit of making modular style buildings so I could create a town/city and have street fights & barricades but it might be too much work for a scenario which could get a bit tired pretty quick. Might be one for the paper buildings.

More later....

[industrialtrousers]

Went a wee bit off mission after getting a few of these made and baked. I decided that they probably wouldn't cast well so I painted them. I'm in the process of making some sturdy walls which I imagine will cast better. Time will tell.

I'm happy with how they've turned out. I've tried to make them a wee bit fantastic by adding in some character details but the photos don't do much for them. For example the front left has a short row of skulls but the angle doesn't really expose them.

Loving the super sculpey. Brilliant stuff to work with. If you sculpt and haven't given it a try then I would thoroughly recommend doing so.

[industrialtrousers]

Bollocks. Forgot to add the second photo.

[Stormwind]

I dig these! Definitely closer to the Warhammer 28mm scale wall plastics they used to have, which is a good thing.

[Rowlybot]

Big thumbs up from me! They look great.

[Grumbledook]

Very nicely done! The walls in the second post look almost Albion themed. They do look as though they could be relatively simple to cast, perhaps using plaster (fairly runny) for an economy test- might be worth a go.

Also when you've got your mold fill it with water, you'll see some bubbles clinging to the interior which you can then tease off with a brush. Empty the water out and let the mold dry. This can slightly reduce the bubbling when using resin or plaster, also give the table you're working on a few good thumps soon after you pour the plaster or resin into the mold - helps to dislodge trapped air early on in the curing process.

Cool stuff, looking forward to seeing more.

[industrialtrousers]

I've knocked up a couple of walls so hopefully I'll get to making an RVC mold this weekend, if the varnishing of the household stairs doesn't get in the way.

On a related matter: has anyone ever heard of using Alginate as a mold?
I was reading this atricle https://davidneat.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/casting-polyurethane-resin-into-alginate/ and the picture at the bottom of the post reveals that the Alginate shrinks quite a lot on drying.

I'm (over-)thinking that masters could therefore be made larger (20mm/25mm) keeping in mind the shrinkage of the mold. That way you could add in details to the figure with greater ease and then let the mold scale it down for you. The trial and error here would take a while as there's a few factors to consider. Makes me which I'd paid more attention at mathematics.

Maybe fantasy figures aren't the best for this, might be more use for the BFG boys.

[industrialtrousers]

4 bits of fence for pink bits.

The rtf silicone rubber went in this afternoon and looks just about dry. It'll give it the 24 hours to be sure Seamus.

Probably didn't put enough mould release in the but we'll see tomorrow.

[industrialtrousers]

Tried this this morning and a perfect reproduction.

Righto. On to something more challenging.

[Stormwind]

Watching this with interest.

[industrialtrousers]

And always put you silicone on a flat surface to dry. &^$%&*(*"£$%&^&.

[industrialtrousers]

Bunch of fences/hedges tec fresh out of the mould. Very happy with how these turned out and feel they're saleable quality. The best thing is that knowing I can create a decent facsimile in resin makes spending time on the masters infinitely more worthwhile.

I also tried to make a mould for a stand of minis but made a few schoolboy errors casting with it so far and no success. Nothing further this month but I will be looking into some sort of modular building outfit once I've nutted out the angles.

MaWo - the resin I've got doesn't really allow you to coat tricky corners first as it sets pretty fast. Good thing is that you can whip it out of the mould in 15 minutes but it's still a little bit soft. Must leave small items longer.

[industrialtrousers]

After a bit of trial and error - I'm not happy with the casting quality of the 10mm. There's still probably a couple of attempts left in me but frankly I'm not holding out much hope. They might be better in pewter but that'll be a while away, if ever.

I've started the first beastman (photo coming) but I can't seem to reconcile the dynamism of the poses I want with something that will cast so I'll probably look to buying in rather than casting them up. I'd love to sort out some dollies to cut down on the workload - maybe the resin might work for that.

I'm hoping to start on some buildings when I've worked out how these can be made in some sort of modular fashion. I don't want to cast them as a solid block. I know they're pretty small but resin still costs a bit and if I can get the design right then you could clip bits out and stack them in different ways. What I want to get to is a 10-12 part kit (walls-downstairs, walls for an upper floor(s), a roof, chimney, dormer, doors, windows) that you can adjust/clip/modify with a minimum of fiddle and green-stuffing to create something bonkers enough to be worthy of a fantasy world which isn't constrained by local govt building laws.