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Making replica parts from Resin 7 years 1 month ago #42490

In reference to my latest post on a Countach shell, I have been replicating some of the body parts that will be impossible to find as spares.

When I collected Tamiya about 10 years ago I made many replica parts for the Scorcher and Hilux, mainly the wing mirrors. But I would also replicated the exhausts, as many of you probably know the rarity and cost of them back then made it near impossible to source, they were very well received by many collectors. At one point I got professional company to chrome plate the replica wing mirrors, which worked very well, but was very costly.

Years on and getting in to collecting again I wanted to have a go at replicating parts and improving on my techniques.

I find each part I do very different and it's almost like you have to think about and design the mould for the part in question. As many of the parts are small, you have to make sure you have to get the resin in all the nooks and crannies. All within the 60 seconds it takes to start to set ;)

I will post more but here are a couple of parts I've made so far.

Countach front bumper:


Countach rear wing



I have also made the wiper blade but don't have pictures at the moment.

If anyone is interested I'll write more :) .

Rob
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Last edit: by Purple_rob.

Making replica parts from Resin 7 years 1 month ago #42504

Stop teasing Rob. :laugh:
I'm waiting for the rest!
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Making replica parts from Resin 7 years 2 weeks ago #42703

Well its taken me a little while to post on this thread again but as I was doing some replica parts for a member on here, I thought i'd take some pictures of some my process.

So Warrior actually posted me a couple of new parts for the 936, he needed a new spoiler, some body mounts and mirrors. When I am making a mould I take each part into account on how to mould it. You have to allow the resin to sit in a basin type shape and where possible not have the top of your mould include small recesses. Recesses mean the resin doesn't get in to those areas and they are normally the critical fixings or details.

I start off by making a kind of open lid box that will hold the part and silicone. It depends on what I am doing and how long I want the mould to last to how I build the box. Some I will construct from ply and some I will simply use lego, yes "lego". Lego is fantastic and very very quick.

I imbed half of the part in modelling clay, this also depends on the part, I like to match the injection moulding lines as much as possible which is another challenge. Once that's done the frame goes around the part and modelling clay I can mix and pour the silicone.

two part silicone before mixing, 1:10 parts. The red bit is an activator.




Wait for the silicone to set and remove the clay and then repeat the process.

Below are a couple of pictures of half the mould with the original parts. The thickness of my mould also depends on how many uses I want out of it. Being a spare part for someone else and a rare part, I doubt I will make many or any more of these.




Then the complicated part. You have the two halves of the mould and you have to mix up the resin and pour it. All within 1 minute otherwise it just cures in the pot. You have to get and keep the mould warm otherwise it doesn't set properly or at all depending on the ambient temperature.

Then once you've done that and you let it cool for a period, you can open the mould and see the part.

Here is a spoiler just finished and cooled:





And here are all the other bits I made for Warrior:

They're not perfect examples but with a little clean up of the flash and primer/paint, you'd never know the difference.

Hopefully everyone finds this some what interesting and useful.


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Last edit: by Purple_rob.

Making replica parts from Resin 7 years 2 weeks ago #42705

Rob, after having the first half of the silicone mould ready, and you're going to make the other half. Do you need anything "inbetween" the two silicone layers to avoid them sticking?
Are you prepping the moulds with anything before you cast the resin?
How do you ensure the to moulding halfs are aligned when you cast?

Sorry for all the questions... :blush:
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Making replica parts from Resin 7 years 2 weeks ago #42713

Rob, after having the first half of the silicone mould ready, and you're going to make the other half. Do you need anything "inbetween" the two silicone layers to avoid them sticking?
Are you prepping the moulds with anything before you cast the resin?
How do you ensure the to moulding halfs are aligned when you cast?

Sorry for all the questions... :blush:


Ask away :) .

A couple of bits to note inbetween the top and bottom. Don't break the bond/seal between the first half of the mould and the original part, if you do, you are highly likely to get mould deep under the part when you pour the second half.

Turn the mould and spray with silicone release. I buy a silicone release from eBay, it's so fine and works great. Just the smallest amount. I use this also pre casting each time. eBay 360619622178

Your third question is the most interesting. I use a few techniques that I've made up myself. You will see from the pictures of the wing that I use a wall to keep the resin in and help me align the mould.

I will also deliberately make indentations in clay when first casting. Just sticking a finger in a few mm in several places can do the job. I'll post another example I have.

You can see from the small body support mould that I trimmed the corners ever so slightly at an angle.

Rob
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Making replica parts from Resin 6 years 2 months ago #47059

I thought this was the best place for my post as I originally posted about repro parts and I have a couple of updated.

First one is that I went on to work on Repro Scorcher mirrors and handles and also tried my hand at hydrochrome. What an amazing process. I plan to do some more but the weather conditions are not ideal at the moment so I have given it a rest. The parts come out a little more steel looking than I wanted, but I think this was down the UV lacquer, a bit too much as I wanted them to be versatile.



The second for making another repro part is I had a break through in my Countach screen today. Here is a picture of my rig I set up. It's very amateur but only build for one purpose. It has a heating element at the top for A4 size sheets, I am currently using 1mm clear perspex. Two shafts allow me to slide the part down over the mould, I used a high temp silicon for this.

Unfortunately, I bust my perfect screen making the mould HAHA, it was an original and they are SOOOO fragile. The service area was so large it cracked down the middle. Shame!!!



I will post some pics when I have trimmed it up. The good news is they are really veratile, I am going to start by fitting one to my runner. Maybe i'll go thicker perspex for the copies, but the originals are only .8mm from memory.
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Making replica parts from Resin 6 years 2 months ago #47060

Awesome work rob.

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Making replica parts from Resin 6 years 2 months ago #47061

Those chrome parts looks excellent! Much like Tamiya's "black chrome" !?
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Making replica parts from Resin 5 years 9 months ago #50767

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Hi Rob,

Great thread, thanks for posting. The one thing I'm not clear on is how you go about pouring in the silicone. Apologies if this is a totally dumb question.
You have the 2 sides of your mould, but what I can't see in any of the pics is the channel into which you pour the silicone ?

I was expecting to see something similar to a sprue, which would be from the pour.

Cheers Al

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Making replica parts from Resin 5 years 9 months ago #50771

Morning Al,

Thanks for asking, I love revisiting this thread.

I don't actually use the mould in this way. With my experience I could tell you the resin would not hit all the cavities. Especially things like location pins.

One reason why I spend a lot of time making a mould is I think about the best way to make it as constantly successful as possible. It's not unusual for a failure rate, things like the thickness of the mould or catching an air bubble in there. It's very easy to mess up.

Getting to the point, I create one half of the mould like a dish with higher edges. When I pour the resin I use a little skewer to help me fill the small cavities. All bearing in mind you have about 20 seconds after mixing this 2 part resin. So 50-60 seconds all together and it starts to cure "instantly". The 2nd part of the mould is fed, placed on top. Excess resin oozes out the sides as waste. This is the best way I find to cast these items.

Naturally all parts are not as simple as it sounds with a parallel facing edge to allow one half of the mould to be a recess. Also I always take into account the natural/original mould lines of the original piece. It makes a much more precise part to match the original lines. This again take me time and thought.

I'll take some pics of the B2B boot mould soon, probably the most simple mould to show...
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Last edit: by Purple_rob.
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