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Hi all,

I've been playing around with casting for about 3 months now. Got myself a pressure pot for pressure casting silicone and resin. I don't have a vacuum chamber, and so far with the pressure pot I don't know if I really need one.

I've been using Smooth-on products to get in to casting small resin parts that I've scratch built, and want to multiply for my army.

I've used OOMOO 30 as my silicone, and SmoothCast 305 as my resin (which I really like). The problem I've been having with the OOMOO is that, my pieces regularly have undercuts, and OOMOO seems to be VERY delicate. I use mold release and it still tears, sometimes even coming away with the master on the undercuts, no matter how careful I am. I've been looking around and heard good things about the strength of MoldMax from smooth-on, so I'm thinking of moving to that, as my OOMOO has just about run out anyway.

The three MoldMax products I've heard of are 14NV (a non degas silicone with low viscosity, but low tear strength also), 25 (a medium viscosity, high strength silicone) and 30 (higher viscosity again).

I was wondering which of the 3 I should get really. I was originally going to get MoldMax 25 but the company I've been looking at in europe (FormX) only has 1kg kits, not the 5kg I'm looking for.

14NV looks great for casting, and has a short (4 hour) cure time, but I'm worried about the low tear strength, and the 30 I'm worried about being too viscous, leading to reduced detail, and also the 24 hour cure time, over which I think my pressure pot will leak from 40 psi probably down to 20 or less, possibly deforming the mold due to air pockets.

TL;DR - Should I get MoldMax 14NV or 30... for high detailed, 2 part molds, with more strength than OOMOO 30?

Also, anyone knows of good suppliers in europe that sell moldmax 25 5kg tubs for around €100 (it would be around 100 on FormX if they stocked it) please let me know!

I'm in the same boat as you. Getting smooth-on products in europe is a pain. Stuff's 150-200% more expensive than in the states and delivery is extra. As best as I can tell, you don't have much choice though. The smooth-on page has their local distributors for various countries listed. Seems like they have a tight grip on redistribution however, since I've never found anyone else selling that stuff (at least in Germany). If you dig something up, I'd appreciate the info!