Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

As Chacal says, without knowing exactly what you're trying to cast, it's hard to give advice. However, this is what I did to cast secondary and tertiary guns on a 1/1200 scale battleship kit I made. I used 0.5mm thick styrene as the gun barrels on the masters and made a two-piece mould for the turre...

Don't be faint of heart!

Most of the tools will last forever, and even stuff like sandpaper lasts an age. Only the putties, cements and paints will need regular replenishing (or not, if you're as slow as I am...).

Do you have reasonably large 'reservoirs' attached to your castings? I don't know what the term really is, but I tend to make excessively large pour-channels and air-escape channels (what I referred to as reservoirs) when casting. When the resin is poured into the mould, I ensure that it fills it ri...

TonyG wrote:Although my patent hot white metal concept on a Black and Decker should carry a government health warning

Ow!

...I just love Schadenfreudian's technique of swinging the mold in a bag about your head :D , if you are going for what is essentialy a single axis rotation, how can you acheive even coverage. I would think that the "swing the cat" method will conentrate the resin at one end of the mold a...

Good call, Modelnutz - there's a good thread elsewhere here about it (where I misunderstood what was being discussed at first... ):

http://starshipmodeler.net/cgi-bin/phpB ... hp?t=36559

Well, good luck Darkson, I wish you well! I'm sure that one way or another you will attain your goal, which is always a jolly good thing in my book.

I was going to ask how large it would be, but having gone through the thread in the Star Wars section, I see 70.9cm long... I imagine it would be very wide - I don't know the dimensions of the ship in question, but I suppose somewhere in the order of 30-40cm width? That's huge, I very much doubt any...

You need tons of equipment. First, a vacuum chamber, because if you pressure cast, your mould rubber must be absolutely free of bubbles, which can only be done with a vacuum chamber. This is because if your mould has sub-surface bubbles, the pressure will cause them to dimple, thus creating correspo...

Sparky wrote:The roto-cast technique (I get the name from websites that sell roto-casting machines) is for making simi-hollow castings.

Ah, I see, I hadn't realised that was what he was asking about, I'd assumed just a way of rotating moulds as an alternative to pressure casting.

I'll get me coat...

I put the moulds in a plastic bag and swing it round my head - works every time. The old "enough room to swing a cat" technique... But ironically in a flat that strictly speaking isn't really big enough to swing a cat... :D Seriously, though, I do actually employ two different 'swinging' ...

I put the moulds in a plastic bag and swing it round my head - works every time.

Ooh, not far from Kew Gardens, that should be easy to get to. Thanks!

I've tried moulding rubber with a 1:1 mix ratio of parts, and it was awful, so I'd stick with a decent silicone rubber, which will require measuring pots for the components. However, polyurethane resins tend to be mixed in 1:1 ratios, so they're more straightforward to use. Never ever try polyester ...

DX-SFX wrote:Tiranti's aren't cheap. Try Mason Chemicals or The Fibreglass Shop, Brentford (yes, they stock urethane) or the company that I use most, Jacobsons. All three also do silicone rubber (also cheaper than Tiranti).

I've never heard of them, I'll have to give them a try, thanks for that!

Whatever you do, whatever they promise you, do NOT use polyester resin. Ever. It's brittle, and has odd surface catalysys problems (inhibited by the wrong molding rubbers), and the hardner can bring on an acquired LETAL allergic condition - the MEKP is a sensatizing agent. How do I know? I used to ...

Where in the UK are you? If you live in, or near to, London, Alec Tiranti's shop on Warren Street is the place to go. I use their own-brand silicone rubber (T20, the most flexible, copes well with undercuts) and a German urethane resin, Sika Biresin, a standard two-part job. Do not under any circums...

I agree with Timescape, I think your planned dimensions are too small. You can do a google search for images (in my case, simply 'French church'). For example, here is a little French church: http://www.wgan.com/upload/french_church.jpg Here, oddly enough, is a wargamer's model: http://www.wargamesd...

30 x 12 = 360 inches.

Divide it by 100 and, yes, it gives 3.6".

Don't think about numbers first, just go with what looks right with your figures (assuming they are 1/100 scale - are you sure they aren't 1/72?) - though a 30' church does sound very small.