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okay, so i've been wanting to make some molds of parts to greenstuff cloned peices, how would i go about that?

"Instamold" is one means. Another is to use Greenstuff to create a press mould. You can only really get 1-sided objects using a press mould, but it is useful for a wide variety of stuff.

Alternatively you can go all out using latex rubber moulds and liquid resin like the professionals do, but I can't help with that kind of thing

I can vouch for insta-mold. It can be a wee bit tricky to get the hang of at first but once you do you will find its very handy.

Instant mold is a great product, but doing 2 part molds can be difficult and take practice & wasted epoxy to get right.

If you want to go all out with resin and two part molds you can get them from smooth on and a variety of other companies. On the Smooth On site they have allot of tutorial videos and pictures. Their mix is 50 50 so it is a very simple mold/resin to work with.

 epil wrote:
If you want to go all out with resin and two part molds you can get them from smooth on and a variety of other companies. On the Smooth On site they have allot of tutorial videos and pictures. Their mix is 50 50 so it is a very simple mold/resin to work with.

I can vouch for the decent price of their kits, but not for anything else yet. I've got the pour-on starter but it's too cold to use it here & I haven't figured out a good way to heat my shop yet.

 Flinty wrote:


Alternatively you can go all out using latex rubber moulds and liquid resin like the professionals do, but I can't help with that kind of thing

Silicone rubber works better than latex.
Professionals tend to use silicone rubbers over latex - because at least silicone rubbers don't rot (latex does).
I know a lot of Americans use "latex" as a descriptor for all rubber like compounds, but at best it's inn inaccurate and at worst it's misleading and wrong.

I've been using 2 part molds with Instant Mold quite nicely and making my casts in Milliput.

The trick, is to use Lego, same as in regular casting.
I make a case slightly larger than my piece, half-fill it with Instant Mold, press in the piece (let it dry for a bit) then press down the top half, and apply the lid.

The case gives the support and pressure for a cleaner mold, and it's been going well for me.
My attempts pre-lego went less amazingly though.

(Mostly been casting replacement converted Lances and Dissies for my classic Raider/Ravagers, as after so long, a lot have got broken / lost and it's incredibly hard to find replacements for something made of a classic reaver splinter rifle tail and classic lance/dissies...). and casts of conversion / scratchbuilt parts.)

Silicon RTV is your best bet. It may not "rot" but it does dry out and become unusable over time. That can be months to many years depending on the type of silicone used and how they are treated and stored. I recommend Smooth-On as well. For starting out their Oomoo silicon and Smooth Cast 300 resin is tough to beat. You can usually get the best price on small bottles from Dick Blick or Utrecht art supplies. Utrecht often has 30-40% off discount codes.

You can also get an Alumilite starter kit at Hobby Lobby that works pretty well. It's more expensive than Smooth-On but they always have weekly 40% coupons as well. You wont get as many good castings from their Silicone and you have to be quick with the resin due to very short working time.

Check YouTube for mold making and casting. Freemansupply.com also has some good vids.

Feel free to IM me with questions, I have a fair amount of experience molding and casting.

http://www.eagletransporter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7449&page=4

A small section I did on making simple RTV silicone moulds. These are for simple, single sided parts that can be gravity cast as one surface is not required to have detail on it. This means that when I cast the parts I could over fill the mould to allow for the small amount of shrinkage and still have a part that was proud and able to be sanded back to the correct dimension for me to use.

Two part moulds are somewhat more complicated due to the requirement for allignment pins, runners, and risers in the mould, but not that much more complicated.