In this example, I pushed the shell deeper than halfway so that the tail fins would not have any gaps open underneath. You can lay out the pieces on top of the clay to figure out the right locations before pushing them about halfway into the clay. The vents open to the side that will become the top of the mold. Note that they are placed at the highest points on the cast because these points are where air bubbles will become trapped in your mold. Now insert your sprue pieces to make air vent channels. This leaves you with a nice clay base to set pieces in. Now use the Lego tamping block (my black Lego pieces) to compact the clay even more and to make the clay nice and level. Next place the clay into the frame and use your fingers to push the clay around so that it firmly joins the sides of the frame and has a fairly level surface. Now that we've covered materials, it's time to begin making the mold.įirst, we will build a nice clay base to set our originals in.īuild the Lego frame up to two levels and make a nice square piece of non-drying modelling clay that will fill about one and a half levels of the frame. When we do a test cast, you will need a mixing cup (paper or plastic) for the resin, a rubber band to hold the mold together, Alumilite's Amazing Casting Resin kit (which inludes the measuring cups and stirring sticks, and a nice surface to work on that will allow you to spill some resin. You will also need something like a stopwatch or clock to measure curing time (or demold time when we get around to casting). You will also need tools that will show up in later pictures: A craft knife or X-Acto blade that can cut through the golf tee, a pair of sprue cutters, a round file (optional), and a pen that can write on the tee. This final picture of materials for mold making shows the two components - A and B - of Alumilite's Amazing Mold Putty. You can use a mold release agent like Alumilite Universal Mold Release (UMR) if you wish. The picture above shows the bowl of light virgin olive oil and brush that I use to keep my mold putty from sticking together when I create mold side 2. This second shot of materials better illustrates the type and quantity of Lego pieces, that I used to build my mold frame and tamping block. In the picture above, you can see the Lego mold frame, a Lego tamping block, a block of non-drying modelling clay, a wooden golf tee, bits of trimmed sprue, my original Griffon shell, and two small ball bearings AKA Daisy BBs (in an upside down 25mm round base to stop them from rolling off of my table). The first few pictures illustrate the materials used to make the two-piece mold: Unfortunately, Forge World doesn't make these shells and I want about 18 of them. The finished mold will produce resin replicas of a Imperial Guard Griffon Mortar shell that I made out of bits and styrene. This tutorial shows a step-by-step process used by JB to make a two-piece mold using Alumilite Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Casting Resin.
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