new to molding

[Novista]

Alright guys, so i'm seriously (i have a little money ) starting to think about molding and casting, would you say it would be a better learning curve to start with gravity casting to iron out some of those creases, before heading down the pressure/vacuum route. Also a decent cheap supplier in the U.K.?

[Hiflt4@juno.com]

Depends on if your makeing a business or a hobby out of it and what type of item you casting.

[mangozac]

My general advice to people is that if you can't afford a lot of experimenting then you should avoid resin casting. While it is possible to get acceptable (but still not fantastic) results using "room pressure" gravity casting, it is very difficult and requires a lot of trial and error. It's not necessarily a learning curve doing the gravity casting first - if you're serious you're best to go straight to pressure casting

[Fleafa]

Where are you in the UK?

[Novista]

[Novista]

[Fleafa]

[Munkey Joe]

+1 Fleafa!!! its awesome that your offering you your stuff to help out!! Its Part of the friendliness of this forum!!!

as far as casting and stuff Gravity FOR TERRAIN..... BITY mold supply in America has a wonderful channel on you tube. They are in TX so I wouldnt order if I were in the UK BUT have alot of info for props and such.....Check them out for Ideas...

[mangozac]

Novista; thanks for clarifying your financial position. In the past I've felt bad when I've given casting advice to people and then they get upset because they went through a whole pack of silicone/resin in perfecting the process.

Fleafa is very generous and it gives me the warm fuzzies to see that the community on this forum continues to be so helpful.

For terrain you may be able to get away with gravity casting using a single part open topped mould. You could dust the mould with talc to help prevent bubbles on the surface and many people have some degree of success using vibration (like sticking it on top of the washing machine on spin cycle).

If you can afford the resin and silicone I guess it's worth picking some up to try out. Then if that's not giving good enough results you can try going with just pressure over at Fleafa's workshop.

[Deadmeat30]

Novista,
If you want some free silicone and resin to play around with, Contact ACC silicones and speak to the about it, they will look at a 1KG sample to send you. Just blag company and stuff, lol. And same with John Burn, they supply resins. Again will provide you a free sample. Great way to get some materials to experiment with. My experience, dont touch the TOMPS value range, moulds tear very fast.

As fleafa has offered, its an amazing chance to play about with the kit and see how the process works to work out what you need! Wish i had that when i started .

Also for your pressure pot/Vacuum chamber, look for Pressure pots on ebay. They are old airbrush pressure pots, about 10 litres. But i have picked them up for between £26-£60 each.

Hope that helps

[Novista]

Hi Ben.
That's a little more than i was thinking cashwise, i've been after a compressor for my airbrush for a while, so i can sell it to myself (read as wife ) for dual use, after re-reading the advisory threads, i think doing it properly is the best and where i should be aiming, so what little money i have i'll have to save. I will take you up on your offer, i'll pm you when i can get a space. I'm near brighton. Be good to see if i can handle it. Thankyou so much for that.

Too everybody else, cheers for all your advice, i think getting my head round it should help out with acquiring second hand stuff. Getting free stuff, awesome the wife is fantastic on a blag I can get my hands on a ultra sonic, a simple cleaning one not UV or anything, would that be good for air bubble removal?
Cheers everyone for all your help.
si.

[Fleafa]

[mangozac]

There is a video on here somewhere of using ultrasonics to vibrate the bubbles out of resin, but it was a pretty industrial type of setup so I wouldn't expect any useful results from a small domestic machine. Wouldn't hurt to try though...

[Hiflt4@juno.com]

I saw that aswell but the Ultrasonic generator they use for that is in the several thousand quint range not the sort of thing you find for consumer cleaning.

[Munkey Joe]

interesting on the ultrasonic.... Here is a link from a Great guy Bruce Hirst dealing with casting plaster and an interesting table he made for vibrating table for casting. Its close to the bottom under "Making a work surface":



and his "High speed low drag" version with a massager:


Hope this helps with trying to use Vibration to remove bubbles...