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The purpose of this article is how I make my own molds from bases that you have and cast them - quick, easy and extremely cost effective. It is not intended to violate any copyrights on different company's bases - simply to take a well created base you've made (GW base creating kit is pretty good) and incorporate the theme into your army.

What you will need:

Sheet of 1/4 foamboard
Wood Glue
Superglue
Silicon mold making rubber (I recommend AeroMarine Products AM125)
Dental Stone (I recommend plaster supplies on eBay - sells for $1 per lbs and has free shipping)
Bases of your choice
T-Square level

1. Lay out your bases on the sheet of foamboard, utilizing the straight edges as much as possible. To minimalize the amount of dead space in the mold (requires more rubber), I would have the edges of the bases about 1/4" away from the edges and from eachother. Doing this will give you an idea of how big your mold is going to be. I usually like to arrange mine in a somewhat rectangular shape. For example, I made a mold of 10 20mm square, 5 25mm square, 2 25mm x 50mm square, 2 40mm, 1 50mm and 1 50mm x 100mm square bases, which ended up being 6" x 4" for the entire mold.

2. Once you have determined the size of your mold, draw the outside edges on the foamboard and then measure how high you want the sides to be. As a general rule, the sides of the mold should go flush with the bottom edge of the foamboard bottom and extend at least 1/4" above the highest point of the bases being duplicated. Do this for each side of the mold.

3. Once you have drawn out and measured the bottom and sides of the mold, cut them out with an Exacto knife. This will ensure your cuts are straight and very fine. Align the sides with the bottom piece and glue them flush with super glue. Wait for this to dry.

4. Once the sides are all attached, I like to run a bead of super glue down all of the seams and edges to ensure the mold box does not have any leaks. If you have any significant gaps, you can use the wood glue to plug them or attach a scrap piece of foamboard to seal it. Don't worry - doesn't have to look pretty as you'll be throwing it away later. The two most important things are A. Making it leakproof and keeping it level (check with level).

5. After your mold box is made, take your bases and arrange them how you determined in step 1. Once they look right, take a small tab of wood glue, coat the flat edges of the base and place them how you want them in the mold box. This will ensure they don't slide around and also that no rubber will seep underneath them when you pour the rubber.

6. After the wood glue has fully dried, your ready to pour your rubber. It's self-vulcanizing (if your using the brand I recommended) and actually pretty cheap (you can make several molds out of the one-quart sized option). Measure it out to a 1:1 mixture, but keep in mind that it's easier to mix too little and just add more to the mold than use too much and have to throw away unused stuff. You have about 30 minutes of set time, so if you don't pour in enough, mix somemore and add it in. Note - it will basically destroy whatever container you mix it in (it doesn't come off), so use an old cup or plastic cup or something. Try and pour the rubber in the dead space in between the bases slowly, as it is extremely liquidy and will flow into all of the nooks and crannies on it's own. Once it has settled, has leveled out (don't worry about air bubbles they will rise and dissapear on their own), set the mold aside. Usual drying and curing time is about 2-4 hours as long as you didn't make it extremely large, but I would let it dry overnight just to be safe.

7. Once the mold has dried, break out the side pieces of the box. Then, peel the mold away from the bottom of the box. The bases you originally used should stick to the box still, but if not, don't worry. You can place them in a bowl of water to sit for several hours to loosen the wood glue and then scrape it off later to be able to use the bases for models. You should have a blue colored mold sitting in front of you with the impressions of the bases. Success!

Now on to casting. I prefer the dental stone material over resin as it is very durable (usually 7,000 to 9,000 PSI), as well as it is extremely cheap ($1 per pound and it goes ALONG way). I use the PlasterSupplies on eBay who does very good deals on it with free shipping. A 30 lbs box of dental stone has lasted me about 4 Warhammer Fantasy armies and some other odds and ends projects.

1. Place a paper towel underneath your mold that you cast.

2. Mix up a batch of the dental stone - you'll need trial and error to figure out how much you need to fill your mold. The mixture ratio says 1:8 for water, but I usually just eyeball it now. The end result should be a slightly soopy mixture that does not have any chunks in it. If the molds that you cast are fairly static with no stray pieces or easily broken pieces (like small branches sticking out, pipes, etc. etc.), you can make your batch a little thicker for faster drying times. If there are many areas where air pockets could be trapped, I would recommend a slightly more watered down mix that will flow into all the cracks easier.

3. Once your batch is mixed, spoon it into the mold, with each mold impression slightly overfilled. Once this is done, I like to gently tap on the sides of the mold and shake it around a bit to get the dental stone to flow into all the nooks and crannies, as well as dislodge any air bubbles which were trapped in there. This is important as air bubbles will ruin the bases your creating. If you don't see any bubbles rising to the top - don't worry - depending on the base your casting there might not be any.

4. Once you have tapped the air bubbles and shaken the mold (usually about 15-20 seconds worth), set the timer for about 5-6 minutes. This will allow the material to set and let excess water rise to the top. After the time has expired, take a flat edge (or t-square) and gently run it across the top of the mold, pushing any excess off to the side on the paper towel. This is importannt as it will give you a flat base for your model to rest on. If the material has become sticky and is leaving holes and patches in the bottom of the bases, you need to scrape it faster next time, as the dental stone has already set faster than you anticipated. The end result should be flat, have no holes in the base and relatively smooth. Ensure you wipe off your straight edge you scraped it with and clean up any residue that is around, as dental stone is extremely hard to remove once it hardens.

5. Allow about 1 1/2 hours for the mold to set. It should darken as it is drying and then become a much lighter color when it is ready (mine is a yellow dental stone so it's pretty easy to tell). Once you've let it sit and is dry, just pop them out. You may notice a slight lip edge to them, which you can easily sand or scrape off to make the sides of the bases flush. And your done!

I like to magnetize all my armies, so at this point I will usually attack metal sheet bases I get from Wargameaccessories.com ($5 for 36 of them already cut to 20mm or 25mm). You can also purchase magnetic stick on sheets to attach to your movement trays which will work nicely with the metal bases from the same company as well. Attaching the metal bases to the dental stone bases helps not only with the magnetizing, but also in case the bottom of the base you cast was not 100% level, the metal base will help even it out.

Hope this works for you - it can be used for square, round - basically anything you want to cast as long as it has a flat bottom to it. If you wanted to cast individual pieces (like sprue bits, meltaguns, individual models), the process is alot different because your 3d casts usually involve 2 seperate molds. To keep the size of the mold down, I use the minimum number of bases and just repeat the casting as many times as I need to make the quantity I need, i.e. if I need 50 25mm round bases, I'll just use 5 of them for the mold and cast the mold 10 times. It will require trial and error, so don't become frustrated if it takes a few molds or castings to get the knack of it.

Might want to change "resin bases purchased from a company" to "bases you have made yourself from scratch and want to duplicate", as that is better (ditto for the other bits and pieces you mention in the article - only duplicate your own designs!).

Even if you don't intend to sell duplicates, you are still making dupicates of someone elses designs.

Also, it is an interesting article. I think there may be one in the article section already dealing with the subject of casting, but you can always check and add one in if not, or add in any extra information you have and the existing article does not

Yeah the article is designed for your own bases you've created.

Mattbranb wrote:No problem - edited it for content. I think folks can read between the lines though

Though there is a difference between reading between the lines, and actually reading something telling you to (or how to) copy things made by other people

Having made and cast a number of bases- I have a few comments.

1 - use MDF rather than foam core for the mold box base. I would never trust foam core to not warp.

2 - white glue (I use Tacky Glue) works fine to glue the foam core together. No need to use the more expensive super glue.

2a - Legos make a great mold box. Perfect if your making a lot of molds.

3 - choice of casting material is a tough call. If you're making just a few dozen, a 4 lb can of Durham's Water Putty is the best call. Its about $10, and you'll not have any left over material.

The best cost per weight is the gallon size resin kits. Runs about $80 or $90 US, but will provide material for hundreds if not thousands of 25mm bases. To make this work you'll need to sell of some of the bases to return the cost of the resin.

The only problem I have with using resin to cast the bases is having to use mold release, as well as isn't the working time available with resin once mixed pretty short?

I use mold release sparingly and don't seem my molds being any worse for it. You could probably skip it entirely. I have molds with more than 50 pulls that are still doing fine - just a small amount of drying in the finer details. Plus bases don't have all the fine detail of a model - generally your casting sand, plastic card or other broad detail. What I do fine mandatory is talc - fights bubbles and helps hold detail.

Resin comes in all sorts of pot lifes. I use a 3 minute product, but you can also get 5 and 10 minute products. Plus the small amounts of resin going into a 25mm base will slow the kick time too. In my experience, one inch of liquid resin in a 16 ounce cup can be poured over 4 10 socket molds without trouble.

will have to try this out - thanks man~

any pictures to share?

Have you casted anything other than bases? Your own parts? (Self created of course ;P)

I've worked mostly with large objects: bases, terrain and objective markers.

http://chicagoterrainfactory.wordpress.com/gallery/
http://chicagoterrainfactory.wordpress.com/adepticon-terrain/

So basicly you made a mold they way Hirst arts did for there building blocks for structures. Its a open mold on top for the flat bottoms of the molds right??
Im Going to have to try that now too..( since i use alot of Hirst molds for building Terrian pieces)....

On a side Note you might what to use Jet dry(for washing dishes) as a loosing agent, and a old cookie sheet and a hand held vibrater( not the sexual one but a massaging one) and place it on the cookie sheet, while the mold on there with the dental stone, it will shake out the bubbles for you faster.

Thanks for the great tutorial... The aero marine is great...

Images of my first custom bases - Temple Ruin Theme...

Some very nice bases, but this thread is over 2 years old.

But they are kick ass bases - thought about making a painting log or something? I'd certainly like to see more if you have that kind of skill

SilverMK2 wrote:Some very nice bases, but this thread is over 2 years old.

Not a problem for tutorials. We're happy for people to dredge them up for as long as they're still useful to someone.

Cool to know

Thanks for the feedback, I'll have to look at starting a painting log... I had not realized this thread was so old, came across it while searching and thought I'd post my results. Again, thanks for the feedback.