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Does anyone another place to purchase the stuff?
Thanks

Just ordered a package. I can't wait to give it a try. I have some OOP metal space marine skull pads that I would like to make copies of.

Ground control to Major Tom!

In order to further accentuate your point, I purchased some friendly plastic as well as Insta-mould, as people were saying it was the same material.

Alas, they were wrong, its completely different.

Wow thats awesome Ketara! Big props to you for having the initiative to actually check that out... Fact checking is a neglected art, so good on ya!

Ironically enough, I was watching that new syfy reality show about sfx makeup artists (think it was called 'face off') yesterday and at one point they used friendly plastic, which after watching it in action I can also confirm is not the same. 1 it changes transparency if heated (opaque white when cool, transparent when hot) and 2 it became far more liquid when hot.

Are there more differences than just that now that you've tried them? Lol I debated posting that, but without actually trying both myself didn't want to seem like a hypocrite lol!

Got the product and made a dozen molds so far - verdict is it does what it says.

But it still requires molding skill - you need to know ho to form / make the original mold around the piece being molded, know how to press your casting material into it (used green stuff, grey stuff, and tamiya putty), and get it out.

The mold material is durable and is user friendly. However, I found it is better to heat the molds for use in boiling water rather than 170. Not direct heat but boil water, remove from stove, drop material into it. How malleable the material is makes or breaks the initial mold. You have about 2 minutes, IMO, after removal from water until it gets to 'hard' to get a good mold. It had to dwell in the post-boiling water for about 5 minutes to get soft enough for a good initial mold. It was NOT hot when i used it after bing in the water. Found best molds are about a quarter inch thick - you'll experiment creating a 'best' mold by molding the part several times (normally a PIB with green stuff/instamold, but this is just pop back in hot water to make malleable an mold again in minutes!). 3D casting is difficult as you need to understand how to do this (gas release hole,, not too much material (enough to fill cavity but not overflow cavity and seperate molds), alignment holes/markers, etc. Again having an easy to use and quick material does not eliminate the know-how to cast properly.

Advantages versus Green Stuff casting: Instantly create a mold, more durable, material re-usable, no stick (no more vaseline!), can be reformed into large or small pieces, super-re-usable
Advantages oversus Instamold: no mixing of materials for molds, useable instantly, long lasting (no keeping the molds wrapped in water towels in frig to save for a few molds), durable - been pulling soem molds out with metal tools that did NOT damage the Instantmolds, super-re-usable


No issues would recommend for folks who cast their own stuff.

Ketara wrote:Ground control to Major Tom!

In order to further accentuate your point, I purchased some friendly plastic as well as Insta-mould, as people were saying it was the same material.

Alas, they were wrong, its completely different.

I bought some friendly plastic after CMON ran out of insta mold. It hasn't arrived yet but how different is it? Like I just screwed myself different or have to put more effort in to get it working right?

All in all, I am still not 100% sure what I will use InstantMold for

well i'm hoping to replicate a bunch of tyranid spires I sculpted for my Tervigon that I don't have the heart to duplicate by hand for the 2 tyranofexes and other Tervigon i'm building, so small scale duplication. Agreed that with the difference in cost between resin and green stuff, if you were to crank these out, you'd end up losing money for an inferior product.

Tried a few molds this weekend, mostly of gaming bits for a long out of print game my wife loves (Downfall) and so far the results aren't bad, but not where they need to be. Using Oyumaru and Milliput, I cast a few of the tokens but they when I de-molded them they weren't quite the same size. The cast was slightly bigger than the original (which means it's unusable)

A couple of questions:

Do you use a frame (lego or otherwise) to put the instamold in first? Would this help?
What materials require a vent to be added for the release of gases?
Are you "keying" the mould so that you get perfect lineup?

I've found that the force required to get milliput into all the details deforms the rubbery mould quite substantially. I'm wondering if there's any "pourable" material we could use in this stuff.

Try a mix of gs and milliput, bit softer, but a bit harder when set.

I tried using a box, but I've found thinner molds are better, so no box needed, just make sure you press onto your master carefully and get all the detail.

I think this is going to be best for small amounts of odd copies. Basing stuff, scenics, stuff like that. I plan to do a unit of Deathwatch, and want a piece with the Deathwatch symbol on for a Rhino and drop pod, I'll make a plastic and gs master, then a flat push mold and chuck half a dozen or so copies out... Exactly the solution I've been looking at for this sort of thing!

The fact I can make a mold and a copy in less then an hour plus curing time is in my mind absolutly brilliant for a hobbiest, but you could never make a business out of it!


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Oh and as a side note, being able to sit with the wife in the front room chucking out copies rather then needing to heat white metal on the stove has its own value!

Just curious, why is your Instant Mold white?

I'm betting that is 'friendly plastic', not instamold, which has very different qualities and is less suited to press molding according to Ketara.

People, please stay on target as to what this thread is covering specifically, do not post any old pressmolding material unless it is for a direct comparisson to instmold. Do not come on to write 'it's all the same stuff, it's repackaged and expensive' unless you can back that up. You thinking the descriptions are similar does not a fact make.

No one has particularly been aggressive or argumentative in the thread so far, and I don't mean to make it sound as if chaos is happening lol, but I personally think getting accurate info on this specific product (especially in comparison to the other ones) is really important for the hobbying community. This kinda stuff is all about precision, technique and the right materials, let's not muddy the waters with idle supposition is all I'm saying.

I'm sure the mods will agree with me on that point.

Dunno, Major Tom, the detail on that last shoulder pad looks pretty good. The quality of the pic isn't so great but it looks like the detail people have been getting out of InstaMold (General shape, large details, and smaller details such as the venting around the skull). Also looks like everything is in proportion, which I guess instamold has been doing too (except for toblerimelta).

I've said a few times it's a generic polymorphic plastic. I got on line from a plastics supplier I know for a good price to start some experimenting with. It's not Friendly Plastic either.. But would not be shocked to discover it is, but without the label. I paid £9 for 250g inc tax and postage, 1kg works out about £21, but I've used so little, I may not bother getting more unless I start using for DIY uses round the home like copying coving or corbles!

It's VERY solid when cold, harder and less flexible then figures plastic, but works and was cheap, and can be cut.

I kind of want to get some intant mold, but as I'm in the UK don't have a local suppliers... Suggestions please!

Is instant mold flexible when cold? I like the idea of being able to see if your mold is full with out demolding!

MajorTom11 wrote:I'm betting that is 'friendly plastic', not instamold, which has very different qualities and is less suited to press molding according to Ketara.

Where did he say it's worse?

You've got me there, you are right he didn't, my bad! I assume though that if they are 'very, very different' that one is better than the other? Ketara can you clear that up?

Druidic, my post wasn't particularly meant talk to you in specific, no offense was meant at all, especially if you mentioned it was polymorphic plastic. Just want to keep the thread on topic for direct comparisons you know? Frankly I would love to see you try Instamold, as the person does play a factor in the results as much as the material, so I really like the idea of a side by side by the same gentleman (like yourself ).

So would I.

I've been casting in white metal for about ten years, but really, unless you want 50 or more, its just a pain to make the mold.

I made the below master some years ago, but lost the mold, in about a half hour chucked this mold together and made a cast... Left it to cure for a few hours and just poped it.

Not perfect, but not shabby! The very few dings are because the gs/milliput mix probably formed a bubble with the release agent (olive oil) and a clear product like instant mold could give you an edge.


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Oh, and absolutly no offence taken what so ever! :-)

For those wanting a softer material to cast with than green/grey stuff or milliput- I'll repeat:

Apoxie Sculpt. Its softer than any GS/milliput mixture, is cheaper, and easier to work with in general.

How hard does it dry though? Is it brittle like Milliput seems to be?

UK supplier?

Apoxie seems the same as Magic Sculpt, though bear in mind what Major Tom said about similar products not necessarily being the same.
But in the UK it may be easier to get hold of than Apoxie
I have just run out and about to order some more from Restoration supplies.
They are on ebay as well as having an online shop.
100gms = £4.99
500gms = £19.99
need to add postage iirc £2.98 and £6.99 respectively

Thinking of ordering the 500gm this time as it will last a while and work out cheaper in the long run

I don't think I would worry about the shoulder pads coming out perfect; if nothing else it lends them a feeling of use rather than "Gee that marine's armor just stepped off the assembly line". You would expect some wear and tear after a couple hundred years of fighting...

Scottywan82 wrote:How hard does it dry though? Is it brittle like Milliput seems to be?

It drys hard as rock, but still retains a degree of give and flexibility. It is shatter resistant, so it can take a fair bit of a abuse. I've sculpted everything from 40mm to 1/4 scale figures in the stuff its absolutely brilliant.

With any molding material that cures hard, you must be wary of undercuts! How you lay out the part to be molded is often more important that what material you mold with. Any mold medium material can fail if used wrong. Honestly the best way to proceed is to draw the placement and venting of the mold out on paper. A little pre-planning can save a ton of heartache.

These hard plastic molds suffer zero undercuts. You have to be very carefull in that regard!

However, injected plastic mold in steel are the same, so the same level of care needs to be taken.

I'm not sure I understand. What are undercuts?

Also, as far as "venting":

Do you mean actual vents, like all the way to the "surface" outside the mold? Or just vents for flash where it gives an easier path for the mold material to follow? If the SECOND option, does it make more sense to create press molds with bits of the sprue left on there?

Lastly, for putting the putty in the mold:

Do you get better results by "prepacking" the areas of the mold? ie, Pushing putty into the mold in the rough shape it will need for the final product?

Or is it better to put the putty down the middle of the mold and press it into shape?

Well, I can't speak to GS casting...but in resin, when you pour into a mold you aren't pouring into a truly empty mold. It's full of air that must be displaced to allow the resin to flow to each corner....so you usually have a straw/piece of plastic that goes to the surface of the mold. As you pour into the main entry of the mold, the air is displaced into the vent exit to allow resin flow.

You could likely do something similar here but I would think given how viscous GS is...I can't imagine air being so much a problem. It's likely just the nature of the GS, in which case, prepacking a mold section before slapping them together would likely be the way to go.

Agree with the last post, gs push mold can be nicely prepacked which you cant do with resin. You can even pack the mold, press it, seperate it, scrap off some excess or add more if needed, then press again for the final time.

Undercuts are bits where the mold undercuts part of the finished cast, with a flexible mold it will pull out around small undercuts and survive, the plastic is solid so the cast will need to smoothly slide out of the mold with no undercuts.

One solution would be multi part molds, usually 2 parts as in 3d casts, but you could theoretically make more parts to a push mold to eliminate any undercuts at all, 3, 4 or even more complex interlocking parts if you wanted too!

Hmm, Thinking about it, that has some really interesting possibilities I've not considered at all before....

For example, why drill out a barrel, have a wire insert which is removed as part of the demolding process... You could come up with quite a complex multipart mold for very complex 3d shapes not achievable any other way....

I've bought a package of Instant mold. I'll see what I can do with it when I get the product.

So far I've seen some success making molds out of different items. Thanks to those people who posted pictures

It would seem to be an opportune time to remind everyone that for legal reasons DakkaDakka does not endorse the copying of parts that you don't own the IP to. While we're happy for you to discuss how to cast your own creations posting about (particularly with pictorial tutorials) copying parts made by GW is to be avoided. As such, the thread has been 'pruned' a little, to keep it in line with this policy.

So, please do not post walk-throughs or pics of pressmoulding with GW parts. Any further posts of this nature will be removed.

Valid point I can't argue with, but thanks for leaving up the picture of my own master! :-)

Now back to Intant mold. Anyone got a good cheap UK supplier, I think I want to experiment with that to in comparison!

Thanks Insaniak as Druidic said a fair point.

Apologies for doing what you described.
I wanted a test piece with good detail to give an indication of how well or otherwise it worked.

In due course I will be scratch building some items for casting in a two part mould and will replace the photos if they have not already been removed

Quick google shows there is an ebay seller
is that the stuff Druidic?

BitzBox is now carrying InstantMold in the UK (although they ran out of stock instantaneously)

http://www.bitzbox.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=319&products_id=7592