I altered the techniques summarized in my previous post regarding
making scratchbuild spaceship sculpts out of water-putty. My most recent experiments still utilize two progressive stages of masters (made of spaghetti and water-putty respectively) but now I make a one-sided mold of each (top and bottom) hull's water-putty master using naptha-thinned silicone window caulk. I let the molds cure 24 hours and then pour resin in them.
I purchased some Alumilite Super-Plastic casting resin a few days ago. I've never used this stuff before but I love it! As you can see from the pictures below, I had a few air bubbles in my cast, even with tapping the mold. I'll tap for a full three minutes next time. Still, the finished product is just what I need; resin matches my techniques perfectly. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to metal drop-casting (at least for spaceships). The resin is very easy to carve and file, allowing me to clean up flash. And although resin is far more expensive than water-putty, I think (or at least hope) that I can paint using normal techniques without having to worry about the miniature absorbing moisture and turning to mud. This will allow me to use nice thin coats as well as ink washes and really bring out all the detail. I'm off to assemble the two hull halves and put my painting theory to the test.
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| Top hull on left |
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| Flash to clean off and bottoms to be planed |
Good to see the Hilherdorn scientists are working on some improvements for their ship development techniques. :P
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to paint Alumilite fine, yes.
ReplyDeleteAs it goes, I started in resin casting with Alumilite as well, but I found it to be harder to get good casts with than every other casting resin I've tried since! IIRC it had a higher viscosity and shorter pot life than others I've used. Which is to say that if you're having too much trouble with air bubbles even after some practice, consider that it might not be you, it might be the resin.
Alumilite Regular has a short pot life. Try Amazing Casting Resin(http://www.alumilite.com/ProdDetail.cfm?Category=Casting Resins&Name=Amazing Casting Resin), its thinner and longer pot life. You can get Amazing Casting Resin from Hobby Lobby, just different aisle.
ReplyDeleteLong pour the RTV silicone and dont pour onto the item being molded.
A Pressure pot will help with the bubbles, both molding and in casting. A Pressure pot is more of an investment ~$40(on sale). What you are looking for is a Paint Pressure pot, you can get one from Harbor Freight Tools.
I've been thinking about getting into casting with resin so I can get more creative so this post is definitely encouraging!
ReplyDeleteYou might try the resin that they sell at http://www.micromark.com. Many years ago I used their two-part resin for making copies of some homemade 15mm shields. It was very thin and worked pretty well. At the time, it was $25, now about $35.
ReplyDelete