I have been thinking of getting into some small scale casting for fun and I was wondering where I should start? Any good guides out there for stuff like what materials work best with what, equipment advice and so forth?

Something else I was wondering about is when you commission sculpts from a 3rd party and want to start casting your own copies of it, how hard / how much work is it?

http://www.resinaddict.com/forum/ quite possibly one of the best casting resources on the web.

When commissioning a sculpt it costs's around $100-250 depending on the artist and the detail of the sculpt, it can cost a lot more then 250 if you want a lot of detail. then you pay shapeways or a similar 3d printing company, probably around $45-100 for the print.

Might need to qualify that price with some scale/type. A single 6mm greenstuff inf sculpt will be under $100 from most people.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Yeah, If I'm gonna commission something it will probably be 6mm scale.


Oh and thanks for the forum link, gonna check it out.

A quick rundown on my setup:

a vacuum pump (the priciest thing I've bought)
vacuum desiccator

I use these to remove the air from my rubber (mold max 15T).

a compressor
a paint pressure pot

I use these to cure the rubber under pressure and then get the air bubble out of the resin (smoothon something or other, with a 7min pot life and 45 cure time) when casting.

Other useful things:
non-latex gloves
mixing pots
syringes without needles (I use these to inject the resin into the molds)
a small scale
stirring implements
spare boxes (for mold boxes)
hot glue gun (to make the mold boxes)

I'm very happy with the results using these. Casting is slow, I couldn't really do production but that's not my aim.

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Dave

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Squats 2019-10-17

Ah yes i was thinking vehicles only for some reason.

If you decide you want to commission someone for 6mm infantry I would recommend maybe trying to get in touch with Khronos. He doesn’t post on the forums anymore but he’s the best 6mm sculptor I’ve seen, by a long way.

I've had decent results with resin without using pressure gear, I use filmsil silicone and use the high-pour method to remove the worst of the bubbles, if you make a bottom-fill mould I've never had problems with bubbles in the resin either

Hand-casting metal is definitely doable at home too, it's quicker than resin (30 seconds between pouring and demoulding rather than 30 minutes) less messy overall, and you can melt down your offcuts and miscasts to use them again, 6mm infantry in metal via handcasting isn't ideal, but anything vehicle sized is pretty good, you may lose some of the crispness though

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I also prefer metal casting. Mostly for the speed, i'd get very bored and frustrated doing resin, even if the results can be crisper. Not so good for larger pieces or CAD vehicles though. Also means no for need pressure gear, so that's a saving.

Lego for mould boxes, less work.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

If you don't mind me asking, How much did that setup go for in round numbers and do you have any idea how much a metal casting setup would cost?




How bad is it? 'Cause at this scale I could take a small in hit in quality without it bothering me. Metal seems overall easier but I'm more of an infantry man overall so that's holding me back.

Is there a way we could get stickied a compilation of the various steps to take in turning a 3D model into the desired end product, along with a list of various service providers? Suggested bronzers and the like would be a useful thing to store.

This would be very nice!