Wednesday, November 23, 2011

HIC Side Panel Mold Complete

Here it is!



I will do a test pour as soon as I have some time.

4 comments:

Martin said...

Hi Matt!
I stumbled across your blog trying to research making molds of the side panels for the Han In Carbonite. I am starting down the road to this project myself.

I have the casting of Han ordered, and the dimensions to build the box as well, so that's pretty much covered.
I also contacted some scrapyards asking if they had any original Volvo panels laying around, and they did, but they are pretty pricey, $85, so buying all original ones are out of the question.

I also know there are good resin casts of original panels, but I thought it would be cool (and maybe cheaper) to buy an original one and make casts from that one.

So that's where I'm at now.
The trouble is I have no experience in molding, except with plaster. I do have a friend though, that has dabbled a bit in special FX prosthetics-making, and he has a bunch of alginate laying around and said we could use that.

And here is my question to you: I see you made a mold for the instrumentpanel, but did you just make one side, and slush the resin around? or did you make both sides? And how did you cast it? It's difficult to tell from the photos you posted, but the casts themselves look really great.

My buddy says the alginate easily gets damaged when removing casts.
Do you think we would have to make a new mold for each casting, or will it be possible to make a reusable mold using alginate?

I would greatly appreciate some more detailed information on making a mold and casting an instrumentpanel, and maybe a step-by-step, seeing as you got such great results and nice looking panels!

Sincerely
Martin Sivertsen
Norway
TK-3664 of the Nordic Garrison, 501st Legion

MattMunson said...

Hey Martin! Thanks for the note, and best of luck with your HIC build. Answers to your questions to follow. Yes, I molded just the front side of the panel, and then slush cast a set of them out of resin. So my copies are not solid resin, but are just a thin skin that filled the mold. In fact, the mold pictured in this very post is the finished piece. Algenate is NOT a good molding material for working with resin. The reason is because algenate contains a lot of moisture, which reacts VERY poorly with resin. Algenate is great for casting stuff in stones, such as hydrocal or ultracal. Also things you don't want to use for this project.It is extremely difficult to get multiple uses out of algenate molds, by the way. In fact, it is by design a single use mold. I have a few videos on my youtube channel about making molds out of silicone, and even casting resin in them. Check out www.youtube.com/theprojectworkbench for more info. If you check out the playlists, the one you want to take a closer look at is the one that details my Arkham City Grapple Gun build. ALL kinds of molding and casting going on up in there. Hope that helps!

Martin said...

Hi Matt, and thanks for the reply!

I'll have to invest in some silicone and resin then. It's very cumbersome to import, but I have been informed of a place in my country that sells exactly what I need, I only need to figure out how MUCH of it I'm going to order :P

How much silicone do you think is needed to make a similar mold to yours, would 1 litre (0.25 gallons) be enough? And how much resin would you say it took to make one cast?

After looking a bit more at your pictures, I think I've figured out how the box for the mold is constructed. You have mounted the panel with the hollow side down on a board, and then slanted it, so that the main side of the panel is facing straight up and laying horizontally? If you follow, and then built a box around that?
That seems to be the most space-effective way to do it :)

I am well on the way of building the boxes for the HICs and the castings of Han will be arriving tomorrow, I have a blog where I document the build http://nidarostrooper.blogspot.no/. And I have registered over at The RPF as well, suppose I'll have to make a build thread there too. ;)

Thank you for the feedback, and for sharing your knowledge and know-how. I appreciate it very much!

Ged C said...

HI Matt. Also kind of found your blog looking at instructions for moulding HIC side panels etc. I'm scratch building one just now. Did you degass the silicon mould as it was curing or did you just pour slowly. I'm not planning on building or buying a vacuum chamber etc so wanted to know if good results could be obtained without degassing the silicon etc. Your thoughts would be appreciated given your mould looks fab. Thanks again and nice work. Ged