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I was looking to make some moulds and do some casting of custom parts for my army. The only problem being that I dont know what to use! I know some great stuff that BLACKHAND uses in NZ but sadly international shipping hurts. Anyone from here in the states have any suggestions on casting and moulding materials?

Allumite products are generally the way to go imo. I know hobby lobby carries them and if you can find it the Mini Casting Kit is a great deal if you're just starting out.

I actually use their amazing putty to make moulds for some smaller casts using GS since I am terrible at sculpting. I went to their site and I think I'm going to invest in some stuff. Thanks alot Aus-Rotten for the quick response too.

I buy my stuff from a company that posts them on ebay. Aerovent products is their name I believe. I get the RTV silicone for mold making and the plastic resin thats the simple 1 to 1 volume mix (you can also get stuff that requires about a 1 to 10 mix if you have the equipment to measure it out)

Do people ever cast GW models? I found something strange on ebay that said "resin marneus calgar" a couple moths ago.

I mean, if you really wanted to build an army of marneus calgars, I guess you could, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy a bunch of the metal ones?


Anyway, casting is awesome, but it requires money $$$, which isn't a problem to some, but it is to me

Casting is pretty cheap after the large initial investments. You could cast GW minis but I'm pretty sure selling them would be against the law.

Samus, yes, people do, its often a way people scam others, having a LTD edition figure and casting it over and over in resin then selling the resins

Khargrim wrote:Samus, yes, people do, its often a way people scam others, having a LTD edition figure and casting it over and over in resin then selling the resins

Well, scamming is a strong word. I don't really think I'd have a problem buying something like that though. Anyway, this is getting off topic.

tony_nids_10 wrote:Casting is pretty cheap after the large initial investments. You could cast GW minis but I'm pretty sure selling them would be against the law.

In quite a few countries*, merely the ACT of making a mould to copy them is breach of copyright and would be a breach of some kind of law or act.
Then casting them is another breach.

Whether or not you intend to sell them is irrelevant.


*'Fair use' does not generally allow this - unlike 'format shifting' of media.

Actually I have a question, I picked up the Allumite stuff at my local Hobby Lobby and was trying to test it out. But I'm getting a lot of bubbles. I've tried the "vibrating" table, and a friend suggested I look into a slower drying resin would that help? cause I just have the stuff the starter kit came with.

Also, I'm only casting extra power weapons for my death company since the box only comes with one. Would it be better for me if I was making a cast of something like a full model, instead of just one arm.
Bought this kit cause it was on sell for $50.
http://www.alumilite.com/ProdDetail.cfm?Category=Starter%20Kits&Name=Super%20Casting%20Kit

Phat13uddha wrote:...I'm getting a lot of bubbles. ... slower drying resin would that help? Would it be better for me if I was making a cast of something like a full model, instead of just one arm.

NEVER cast the whole model unless you have no other choice! Its a bigger Pain, and takes more material. (translation= More $$$)

I'm assuming you are doing a two part mold. If so you HAVE to have a fill hole. Do you have a vent hole? If not just add one by cutting a channel from the bottom most point diagonally to the top. This will allow the resin to "vent" air bubbles. Just make sure you fill to capacity. I generally use a syrenge to inject the resin. And YES a longer demold time may mean waiting longer; but it also gives the air more time to escape.

We've been just doing a single arm with a power sword from the BA Death Company box.

We've been following instructions/tutorials we found here on Dakka.
It is a 2 part mold. And we have a fill hole too.

We have vents up and going and were just not sure what else to do.

I've been pretty much doing everything I could to try and stop air bubbles. (Vents/shaking table)

Were at the point where the only thing we could think of was a long casting resin but I wanted to ask before I ordered some.

Pour the resin as slowly as you can so that you don't get air trapped in the mould. That's one tip I've heard for trying to get rid of bubbles.

Also, mix it so that you don't fold or trap air in the resin.

Oh, and don't recast stuff other people have made - the casting gods may be inserting bubbles as punishment

Samus_aran115 wrote:Do people ever cast GW models? I found something strange on ebay that said "resin marneus calgar" a couple moths ago.

I mean, if you really wanted to build an army of marneus calgars, I guess you could, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy a bunch of the metal ones?


Anyway, casting is awesome, but it requires money $$$, which isn't a problem to some, but it is to me

I currently have molds to cast Tallarn guardsmen, dreadnought right handed combat arms, dreadnought legs, dreadnought multimeltas, Tallarn tank commanders, Cadian torsos, plasma cannons (from the FW dreadnought arm), FW renegade militia, mk VI beakie heads, loads of power armor torsos and shoulder pads as well as custom bases and probably more things I can't think of.
I don't make them to compete with GW, it's just stuff that I wanted to have more of myself and this beat the crap out of searching and finding all this stuff elsewhere.
It's also great if I make a conversion piece that I'd like to arm a lot of troopers with. I don't have to repeat the conversion itself 50 times, I can make a mold and pour 50 copies
When I get casting resin it comes in 2 quart bottles and costs about 30 bucks. I can make a LOT of parts for that 30 bucks so I don't think it's that expensive at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
added - I use this http://cgi.ebay.com/Casting-Resin-Urethane-polymer-molding-1-2-gallon-/330452334228?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf07e7694#ht_1150wt_911

In my estimation, it's almost certainly your resin. There are big differences in quality. Slower curing resin, of a higher quality should do the trick. I've been playing with injection plastic molding myself, so I haven't been resin casting in some time, although ironicly I'm making a resin cast mold right now for some of the deathstrike missle launchers. What a ripoff that they purposely made it so you're left with a bunch of useless missle halves, if you build one or the other. Grrr... Casting just fixes the inequities of poor marketing. If more people cast their parts, we might see an end to that kind of stupidity.