Saturday 22 October 2011

How To Cast Resin Tutorial Part 3 Making The Mould

Probably one of the most important bits to get right, so take your time after all you do not want to get through making your mould, only to find out that it has went horribly wrong.

Also you will only have a limited supply of materials and you don't want to waste any considering it's quite expensive. So making sure you get the following steps right from the very start will help to keep waste to a bare minimum.

As you can see I'm going to make another mould for a little bits and pieces that I need as well as the killer Kan Gatling gun. at this point I recommend getting some Lego as you will need it to make your box for your mould it's probably the best stuff to use, and being relatively cheap it's cost-effective.



When doing this it's important that you spent a little bit of time to make sure that your bits they are firmly attached to the base. As what can happen the bits that you wanting to cast can sink into the mould, and you have to do it all over again, and no one wants that. 


To do this I recommend using plaster scene as it makes a very secure bond, also it's important that you make sure that you seal the bottom properly as you do not want any mould mixture leaking underneath. 


so make sure it's neat and tidy 


So with all that hard work done it is time for the fun stuff. Make sure you read all the instructions of your mould and catalyst properly as it will tell you the delusion ratio that you will need to do when it comes to mixing the 2 parts together normally for catalyst it is about 1 percent of the mould mixture. 



The way I find it easiest to measure these out is with some scales, after that it's as simple as mixing the two parts together. As you can see the air bubbles rise to the surface which ultimately you want to see if your mixture is right , so once again make sure you take your time.


So now comes to the pouring, starting at one side slowly pour your mixture into the mould slowly as this will cover as much detail as physically possible.



there is no prize for 1st place so take your time as you want to minimise the amount of air bubbles.


As stated above that's why it's so important to make sure that the parts that you are moulding have been attached with no gaps underneath as you do not want the mauled mixture getting underneath, so make sure you've taken your time at the very start.


as you can see I actually ran out so I had to make some more but this picture is a good example of the air bubbles rising to the top. At this stage just put it in a warm room on a flat surface and let it dry completely for a good couple of hours.


Using the same process as above I will start to cast the killer Kan Gatlin Gunthis, I must say I was a little bit nervous to see whether or not it would actually work as it's a little bit more complicated with all the little bits of detail like rivets etc.

But a good friend of mine AJ reassured me that it would work.



 There you have it pretty much finished. So in the next step I'm going to reveal the mould, themselves and finally get down to casting the resin.

For me this was the first time I have ever done casting and although it is trial by error there's nothing really hard about it. It's as simple as following the above steps and taking your time.


People assume that casting resin is a quick fix and yes when you have your Moulds up and running it can be, but at the start there is a little bit of time and effort but like anything in life you only get out what you put in.

And having this technique at your disposal it can makes it all the more worthwhile to get right from the very start. and it also opens up loads of potential. 

6 comments:

  1. Good tutorial. You did skip a step that can come back to bite you, you skipped the mold release. With hard plastic you are normally Ok without it but it is a necessity for things like wooden parts. What I have found works best for eliminating bubbles is to brush on a little of the molding rubber on the parts first to make sure you have no trapped air pockets. Second the best thing for sticking down parts is hotglue then a small amount of sulfur free clay to smooth out any gaps. The hot glue is also easy to remove, just spray it down with rubbing alcohol.

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  2. Bubbles friend !!!

    Trickle from up above :)

    Keep up the good series.

    CS

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  3. Lovely tutorial! I'll mark it up for "Tales from the Network #2".
    Can you also add Tale of Painters to your Blog List?
    Cheers!

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  4. Not a problem Stahly, considerate done.

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  5. that moulding stuff looks like the flexible stuff we used to make plaster moulds of our newborns feet... i can see what you meant in your last comment then!

    as an aside... is there potential to cut moulds in two later if you were to do much more complex parts?

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  6. thx for tutotial you convinced me to doit myself and I heard that good stuff is to genly cover parts with talk before pooring mold on it. its helps to - again - avoid traping air in corners of form/item you want make mold of.

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