Greetings all,
it's been a while. sure sure. hope everyone's doing well. I thought some of you might be interested this tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions about materials or process.
cheers guys,
wj

very cool stuff Wheel_Jack.

Thanks a lot for posting!

though im more familiar with pouring the resin while the mold are together in one piece and building pouring tubes into the mold design.

Cool!

yeah definitely, that's perhaps more of a standard and how I used to make them. with this though I can see the resin fill all the crevices in the face. The nose and chin regularly collect bubbles and I don't know enough about vacuum systems. How do you avoid bubbles, syp? I'll take a few shots of my cone head mold, to demonstrate how I combined these two techniques for that one.

thanks

That's awesome. I've been looking into starting to do custom molds myself. I think I have the design/craft skills to do it so long as I practice to get good at it, but that's the problem... getting good at it. And starting.

I have today off work today, I stayed home not feeling well. So between answering emails from work, I'm scouring the board for things that I am interested in. Sorry, Wheeljack, you start too many good threads, and I'm long-winded.

Are larger things impossible or super expensive to recast? I just bought a MyClone Bumblebee and Ultra Magnus, and was thinking about turning their heads into Alternator heads. The BB may be a tad too cartoony, a friend of mine gave me the Wreck-Gar figure, and I was impressed at how good the head looked, despite being a little cartoony. No worse than Alternator Sideswipe's head, I don't think.

The heads are actually in scale with the Alts, I think. Or close enough to not matter, since their heads vary in size depending on mold/character.

I was thinking of molding both those heads with ball joints and perhaps splitting them so I could screw them together... Not sure how to marry that idea yet to actually doing it. The MyClone heads are 1 piece, vinyl-y (soft, anyways) and have a peg that extends from them.

Magnus would work well, but I don't want to paint a Nemesis Prime or Alternator Prime (hate painting large transforming pieces)... I was thinking how hard would it be to recast the arms and the more-frictiony pieces? I could stand to paint some of the other pieces, like the hood, doors, etc. Probably REALLY difficult, or expensive, or both, huh? I'd hopefully cast them in solid colors to avoid the obvious painting, which could yield issues as well.

Unless someone releases a KO Alt prime in white, which I'd buy in a heartbeat. I don't mind KOs so long as they're good bases for kitbashes and not used to replicate something else entirely.

Put off my comment to bump this threat up later on...this is very helpful. Casting is a pain, but things like this help it go smoother!!! Also check out May's issue to ToyFare, there is a casting tutorial in that as well.

Thanks again Wheeljack

this is awsome wheel-jack thanks alot

thanks

If you still have that issue Kalron, please scan that tut and post it. Thanks mang.

No sweat, Ryu Hayabusa.

Mandingo Rex, I love your enthusiasm. I just thought it was funny to come up with a one word response to your novel. I'll do my best to go over what you said. getting good at casting isn't that difficult. it's just patience. It's not like you're trying to draw or sculpt. measuring cups are your friends. So take your time with it and your first head will be pretty good. gimme a shout if you have questions about specific projects.
Larger things are even easier to cast. you just need more material which means more money. I haven't considered casting arms or "large" parts. Heads you can get away with, missiles, hands, basically stuff that doesn't entirely have to fit seamlessly. that is, all the parts I mentioned above are stand alones, more or less. I can't say for sure because I've never tried it but I think it would work. though it would take far less effort to just paint the arms in the first place.

thanks guys

ok I am about to cast my first ever head, it's a one-sided mold of fortress maximus's face. I am planning on coating the inside with talcum powder as I have heard this reduces the likelihood that air bubbles will form. My question is is this: in what way should I pour? I was thinking the deepest part of the mold first and letting the resin rise but I'm not sure, any help will be appreciated, thanks.

EDIT:
Wow, I went ahead and just poured the cast and I have to say it is decent for my first ever try. Here are some pics below.
The last picture is of the mold itself, I had to do some creative work after I realized my mold box was leaking and that I wouldn't have enough silicone to cover his forehead piece. I used to clear silicone from a caulking tube to cover it over (hence the big lump) and to my astonishment it actually worked. Questions, comments, tips would be appreciated.






Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I bothered to build another head if I already had Brave's and the G1 Fortess's it's because I have an extra fort max body that I scored on ebay a few years back and I couldn't get anyone to trade anything for it because it was headless, so now I am hoping Sami will help me make it one of a kind.

very nice work cefurox. caulk? and it worked? clever move! looking forward to seeing what will come of it.

So would this method work for much smaler items? Pistols or thin missiles or the like.

Also... what you want for that head?

No really...

Thats the coolest thing I've ever learned... ok well the theory of relativity is a close second...


Seriously thanks for sharing.

Sularias, thanks man.
and

This method would not work for smaller items. I'm gonna be making several casting tutorials which will be cover the types of items you speak of.

If you're interested in this head, PM me and we can talk about it.

thanks guys

ah. this might fix my problem with having to get a third prowl.how much does the set usually cost?

it depends, if you're getting it for just one head, it might not be worth it. but if you plan to do a few here and there it'll pay for itself and more. especially if you want to use a rare g1 toy that you want parts from but don't exactly want to destroy it.
here you go. http://www.alumilite.com/Category.cfm?Cate...=Starter%20Kits
$30 for the small set
and $70 for the larger set

ah, thanks. was hoping it would be a little cheaper, but what can ya do, right?

wow man that is awesome. thanks for the step by step you have a Pm waiting.

This thread has been bookmarked. Thanks.

Last molding I did was with plaster, a tupperware mold and hot glue. Made a bunch of flimsy KREMZEEKs from the MP mold.

I read about this in various different sites and in toyfare but THIS was the clearest of all (understandable) and i want to thank you Wheeljack for your troubles. Bookmark'D