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So I've been experimenting with blue stuff and green stuff, and while the blue stuff is great I'm disappointed by GS. Too soft, too floppy, not really sandable. I've been looking into Milliput, but I've ran into two problems:

1. I can't find it anywhere in my town and shipping to Canada is $$$
2. Apparently milliput is toxic and I don't think my roommate or our cat would appreciate me working with it.

What alternatives do you guys know of? If I can find it that's great, but I might just bite the bullet and order some regardless. The big thing is #2.

Tamiya makes an epoxy, commonly called "brown stuff" or bondo they are hard and sandable, but it is still epoxy putty. Any epoxy putty is going to be somewhat toxic, but the toxicity you get from just personal use is likely not much more than walking around a city street. Don't eat it though.

What are you using it for? If it's details on minis, you pretty much are limited to the toxic stuff, if you are doing terrain, a whole bunch of other options exist.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Tamiya makes an epoxy, commonly called "brown stuff" or bondo they are hard and sandable, but it is still epoxy putty. Any epoxy putty is going to be somewhat toxic, but the toxicity you get from just personal use is likely not much more than walking around a city street. Don't eat it though.

What are you using it for? If it's details on minis, you pretty much are limited to the toxic stuff, if you are doing terrain, a whole bunch of other options exist.

I build a lot of custom bitz and want to replicate them. My first attempt with the GS was a melta-pistol. The detail retention was all right, could be better but all right, it's just that it was way too soft even after drying and a pain to get into the mould.

 Danielle Rae wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Tamiya makes an epoxy, commonly called "brown stuff" or bondo they are hard and sandable, but it is still epoxy putty. Any epoxy putty is going to be somewhat toxic, but the toxicity you get from just personal use is likely not much more than walking around a city street. Don't eat it though.

What are you using it for? If it's details on minis, you pretty much are limited to the toxic stuff, if you are doing terrain, a whole bunch of other options exist.

I build a lot of custom bitz and want to replicate them. My first attempt with the GS was a melta-pistol. The detail retention was all right, could be better but all right, it's just that it was way too soft even after drying and a pain to get into the mould.

You should try greenstuffworld's acrylic resin. I haven't used the product myself yet but according to reviews it seems very promising.

Apoxie Sculpt is pretty great, more on the milliput end of the scale ; less like green stuff. It can be pretty pricey, but you get quite a lot of the stuff in each container. It sets rock hard, sands okay - definitely better than greenstuff - and smooths much better with water. It's used quite a lot in taxidermy for whatever reason, so you might be able to find it in more specialist stores of that nature if you've got any nearby? It's on the UK and US versions of amazon but idk about Canada.


Also, a hard non-recommendation from me for Brown Stuff; from my experience, it's a pain to work with. Sets hard - much harder than GS - but is significantly harder to work with. Feels like sculpting with green stuff that has already cured for 2/3 hours. Good in a pinch if you need some extra fine detail that would be too flimsy in GS, but definitely not an all-purpose sculpting material.

Milliput mixed into green stuff. This gives the best of both. The toxicity really isn't an issue unless you plan on the cat eating it, or you're using a power sander on large chunks of it. Long as you wet your sanding implements and vacuum your workspace regularly you'll be fine.

Green Stuff shouldn't be super floppy. Now if we are talking about tentacles and other super thin things (like a super long lasgun barrel) you will need a wire skeleton for it.

I've actually got several chaos models with tentacles w/o wire skeletons. They are flexible but green stuff, properly mixed, is extremely durable. So they don't break, they bend then return to position.

What most people do for more firmness is do a custom mix of miliput and greenstuff. This gives the properties of both, kind of a middle road. It won't take as fine of detail but it is also more stiff.

For low-detail, high strength sculpting, you use brownstuff.

If "recasting" you use an actual epoxy resin designed for casting.

You can pressmold greenstuff and have it work but you must apply significant pressure to drive the greenstuff into the fine details. Much better to use a liquid epoxy resin.

If doing press molds like the Greenstuff World blue-stuff molds you can use straight up 2 part epoxies.

From their own videos and my own experimentation with every kind of 2 part epoxy I could find from hardware store to internet.. I ended up with ONE kind and ONE kind only that produced solid results.

This is an amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/EPO-Putty-B-Aquarium-use/dp/B004JJ779U

Nothing and I mean NOTHING. Not even miliput ultra-fine will produce the fine, stiff, durable, high detail end product as the EPO Aquarium Epoxy.

NOTHING.

Yes it's toxic. Use gloves. You should be using gloves when mixing the green stuff too, though greenstuff is pretty damned safe. As far as toxicity, it is eating it level, though all epoxies may result in skin irritation, but beyond that you'd have to eat the stuff or inhale it (sanding dust) for there to be an issue. Wash your hands afterwards.

Here's a list of what I use:

- Procreate
- Sculpty
- Magic Sculpt
- Apoxie Sculpt

Procreate is the best for fine detail.

Sculpty is not self-curing, but it's great for sanding.

Magic Sculpt is good for large models. I use it as a base and layer Procreate over it for detail work.

Apoxie Sculpt is very similar to Magic Sculpt. The main reason to use it is shrinkage, as is in there is none. The stuff gets hard like a brick and is very durable.

Each of these conforms to ASTM D: 4236, meaning it's not going to kill anything when ingested.

Green Stuff World sell 'Brown Stuff'.
I've used it before & it sets stiffer & holds details better than 'green stuff'. It can also be filed.
You get similar results from mixing 'green stuff' with milliput. I use white (ultra fine) milliput. The one time I tried this, I mixed it 50/50 with 'green stuff' & got really good results. It's filable & sandable but does retain some flexibility.

I prefer to use a mix of Magic-Sculpt (2/3) and Brown Stuff (1/3) for replicating parts or surfaces with Oyumaru or Blue Stuff press molds. Much better for this purpose than any of them alone and superior to green stuff in my opinion.

I use green stuff mostly for things to bend such as purity seals, capes and cables also fur, feathers and such.

I use brown stuff for small free hand sculpting (e.g. hair), filling and glueing bits together, also for edged weapons.

I use Magic-Sculpt for larger bits such as vehicle parts. Milliput and Apoxie are quite similar to Magic-Sculpt by the way.

Thaks y'all! After searching a half-dozen shops, I found some miliput and mixed in some GS as some of you guys have recommended. Very happy with the result.

 Danielle Rae wrote:
So I've been experimenting with blue stuff and green stuff, and while the blue stuff is great I'm disappointed by GS. Too soft, too floppy, not really sandable. I've been looking into Milliput, but I've ran into two problems:

1. I can't find it anywhere in my town and shipping to Canada is $$$
2. Apparently milliput is toxic and I don't think my roommate or our cat would appreciate me working with it.

What alternatives do you guys know of? If I can find it that's great, but I might just bite the bullet and order some regardless. The big thing is #2.

Mix white miliput with 5% green stuff --- works amazing example here https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/771248.page


Automatically Appended Next Post:

meatybtz wrote:
Green Stuff shouldn't be super floppy. Now if we are talking about tentacles and other super thin things (like a super long lasgun barrel) you will need a wire skeleton for it.

I've actually got several chaos models with tentacles w/o wire skeletons. They are flexible but green stuff, properly mixed, is extremely durable. So they don't break, they bend then return to position.

What most people do for more firmness is do a custom mix of miliput and greenstuff. This gives the properties of both, kind of a middle road. It won't take as fine of detail but it is also more stiff.

For low-detail, high strength sculpting, you use brownstuff.

If "recasting" you use an actual epoxy resin designed for casting.

You can pressmold greenstuff and have it work but you must apply significant pressure to drive the greenstuff into the fine details. Much better to use a liquid epoxy resin.

If doing press molds like the Greenstuff World blue-stuff molds you can use straight up 2 part epoxies.

From their own videos and my own experimentation with every kind of 2 part epoxy I could find from hardware store to internet.. I ended up with ONE kind and ONE kind only that produced solid results.

This is an amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/EPO-Putty-B-Aquarium-use/dp/B004JJ779U

Nothing and I mean NOTHING. Not even miliput ultra-fine will produce the fine, stiff, durable, high detail end product as the EPO Aquarium Epoxy.

NOTHING.

Yes it's toxic. Use gloves. You should be using gloves when mixing the green stuff too, though greenstuff is pretty damned safe. As far as toxicity, it is eating it level, though all epoxies may result in skin irritation, but beyond that you'd have to eat the stuff or inhale it (sanding dust) for there to be an issue. Wash your hands afterwards.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/771248.page

 Danielle Rae wrote:
What alternatives do you guys know of?

SGT!

SuperGlue Talc - you build up layers of superglue and add talcum powder.

It's ultra fine, non-brittle, carvable, gap-filling.

Good stuff!

Oyamuru works instead of blue stuff if you're using it to make moulds, and can be found cheap if you find the larger packs.

I use milliput for any instance where I have to copy a part with a mould. It sets strong enough for most purposes unless the part you're making is especially thin (and if you're replicating Warhammer scale parts that won't be a problem). You can't use it for everything, but it works for most things, otherwise where it doesn't use another product listed here. I'd recommend trying that first then other products - as its generally cheaper than say greenstuff and you may well get away with using it over the more expensive stuff.

And as far as toxicity, that's news to me. Sure if you cat eats a whole bar of it that may cause problems, though I'd say the same thing with anything of that size. Just put the bars back in their original packaging when not in use (if you let enough air into them over long enough a time the outer layers will begin to harden anyway. Well, on the grey element at least. We're talking weeks though).