Friday, May 9, 2008

Shiny flashy new troops (sort of)

First try at making 2 part molds and casting metal minis.

I got some stuff called Quick-Sil, made by Castaldo. It's more like a soft 2-part putty. You mix roughly equal parts together quickly, place some in a mold box, add mini, add release agent of some sort, add more putty, compress and leave for about 15 minutes. It's pretty easy and fast. I think I just need a bit more practice, but I've already learned a few things.

Then I couldn't wait and had to try casting.

Here are the 4 best copies of each of 2 of the blanks. Not too bad for a first try, I think, but I hope I can do better with practice. I've heard graphite powder helps in the casting process. I think I'll try cleaning these up and try to add more detail (arms, bonnets, etc.).
I need to try making molds and casting the sowrd and musket I sculpted previously.

3 comments:

MurdocK said...

could you give more detail about

"Quick-Sil, made by Castaldo"?

is it re-usable?

what are the temperature tolerances?

Thanks.

Fitz-Badger said...

Hi Murdock,
Quik-Sil is a 2-part putty-like silicone. Once you mix the 2 parts together you have a very limited working time (1-2 minutes according to the package and 15 minutes cure time, so you can make a mold and start casting in pretty short order).
Once it sets it's fairly hard but flexible. You can reuse the molds for many casts (according to the info 100's of casts), but you can't reuse the set silicone to make different molds (if that was what you were asking).
Not sure about actual temperature tolerance, but I've been casting lead/tin metal (mostly remelting old minis I will never use) in them with no deterioration yet (although I haven't done many casts yet either).

Oldpaw said...

It must be a pleasure to see your own efforts coming out so nicely. A true hobbyist!