Plastic Memories and Dreams
Resin Casting
I have recently gotten into resin casting. If any of you are interested in resin casting I have 2 good articles I got from the internet. I would post a link, but I can not find the site any more, but if you will email me I will forward the articles to you. Casting is fun and it is not all that expensive to get into. All you need is the RTV rubber to make the molds and resin to cast. You can get these for around $50. Unless you are casting some pretty big parts the resin will last for a long time. I have probably cast 200-300 wheels, some good and some bad, and still have a lot of resin left. The RTV last quite awhile, but you use much more RTV to make a mold than you do resin to cast parts. You don't need anything but these two items, no mold release or any of that other stuff.
I started with a Micro Mark resin kit my son gave me last year (2004) for Christmas. It set for over a year before one day I tired it out. Yep, first cast was a mess, did not get the resin mixed correctly and it was a sticky, gooey mess. Once I took a little more care to mix the resin components accurately things went better. I thought I would try some different RTV for molds and resin so I ordered some from Smooth-On they work very well. I purchased these two items and have been using them with pretty good results. (Smooth Sil 920 - RTV and Smooth Cast 300 resin). One good thing about these product is they mix at a 1 to 1 ration by volume and that is important if you don't have a scale. I mix the RTV by site, pouring equal amounts into 2 small cups and then mixing the two together. For the resin I use two of those cheap plastic eye dropper. Pull equal amounts out of Part A and Part B and put into a small plastic cup to mix. This works great for small pours.
Update 10/17/06: I have recently been trying some of Alumilite's casting resins and have found their Alumilite White to be great. I have tried both their Regular (tan), which sets up very quick and does not give enough time to get a pour completed easily. But their Alumilte White is great. A little slower to set up and gives you plenty of time to complete a pour. Plus it is less prone to get air bubbles. I will probably be using Alumilite White form now on.
Here is a page that shows my mold making/casting process.
Here is an example of my mold making process.
Here are 2 very good links to resin casting info. If the sites are no exist or you have questions send me an email and I will forward the files I saved on my computer.
Below are some of the items I have cast so far.
Here are some wheels that I have cast. I sprayed them with MM gloss black and then gave the a coat of Alclad. They don't look as good as the chrome in a kit, but they aren't too bad.
Also check out that Chevy small block, went crazy one night and decided to try and cast it. I cast the block and transmission as one piece and then made separate cast for the heads, intake and valve covers. With a little trimming and some super glue it went together pretty good.
Here is a cast of some of the stock 77 Mustang 4 bar steel wheels. For folks trying to build the current release of the 77 Mustang these wheels are very hard to come by. So I thought I might try to cast a few of them. Thanks to the Scale Auto Magazine Forum a nice guy (Kris Morgan) loaned me a set of these wheels to make the master mold.
