FainFlynn wrote:So again, can you please detail what these costs are to justify the ridiculous prices you guys are charging?
I'm saying I would welcome the chance to recast and sell at cost so that people can have access to the minis.
Anyone have links to primers on how to recast? I'd love the chance to make some for all of you, again, AT COST.
That's easy enough. Go online and look at the cost of the materials you'll need. First off, silicone. Starter kits are about $25-30 and they won't make a whole lot of molds. If you go with silicone that's going to last a decent number of molds, you're also going to need a vacuum chamber. Those aren't cheap. Keep in mind that your first molds aren't going to be successful. After your molds, you have to buy the material you want the figures to be. If you're going with plastic, again starter kits are around the same price as the silicone. Your first attempt at a recast will also test the quality of your molds. The mold might look good, but if you haven't made air vents well enough, you're going to be wasting plastic on half formed figures until you get the hang of it. Once you get the hang of it, you still need to make sure the plastic doesn't have any air bubbles in it. A vibration table can help with that. After all that, your molds won't last forever. They will start to lose detail even using a mold release agent. Then you get to start the process over again. As for time, you're going to be doing two-part molds. The higher quality silicones range from 6-18 hours cure time for each part, depending on the temperature and which one you get. Also, all of these things have a relatively short shelf life once exposed to air. So you might be thinking you'll get a large quantity and you'll be set for a while. You'd be wrong. I've had bottles of this stuff go bad in less than a year. You can leave the molds sitting for days at that point and they will never cure. I ruined a Chaos Warrior that way. Since you're so anxious to start this, there's a list of what you need. In addition, you'll need sulfur-free clay for your molds. Make sure you get the right kind because sulfur reacts with the silicone. You'll be resting one half of the figure in the clay and you need to make sure the silicone won't find any holes to leak through to the underside of the figure, otherwise you'll be spending quite a bit of time cleaning up your mold before pouring the second half. Once the first half is done curing, you'll need to remove the clay making sure to get the clay out of the details in the figure. Some clay sculpting tools will help with the mold-making process. Removing the clay from the figure while trying to work around the silicone is time consuming. Best bet is to plan on getting a mold done in a weekend. Unless you want to try making several on your first attempt, in which case I can guarantee you'll be wasting a lot of materials on molds that didn't turn out. Let me know how long it takes and how much money you have spent before you are successfully casting figures with no flaws. It's a lot harder than the online videos make it out to be. I bought a set from Bill because it was a lot cheaper than trying to get molds of my own made and it was a hell of a lot faster too.
Also, don't forget to take into account the cost of actually getting the more rare figures when you figure up your grand total.
by billdask » March 28th, 2015, 10:53 am 
cause recasting white metal recasts you will have details loss.
