I would like to build a City Skyline but the expenses I am looking at a Very HIGH!!! and thought that if I could create a few Molds from Scratch that I could have a Very Lower Cost but Impressive City Skyline.
Can anyone tell me what exactly I need to make a few Molds and then of course to Duplicate these molds…
I have read the one article to Spray some Polyester Parafilm (Mold Release) into the Master. Then Pour Vulcanizing Liquid Rubber over the master to make the master copy.
After the Mold is complete - then to make the copy’s by pouring some (Liquid Urethane Plastic) )also using a mold release for this - wait 15 mins and then my copy is done…
Problem is I have no idea where to get these - my Hobby Shop for making a Mold was Very High and was at Michaels but they had so many different kinds that I did not know nor did the staff at the time. Does anyone else have any Great ideas on how they made their molds & Replicas or Where & What I should be looking for exactly.
If you are making molds then you will want a lot of the SAME building, the EXACT SAME building.
I would suggest before you do that look at painting a skyline or using photos.
You will need RTV rubber to make the mold. You will need resin or dental plaster to make casting.
If you use silicone RTV you don’t need to use release.
RTV runs about 30 bucks for 25 cu in. So if you have a master of a building 6 in wide and 12 in high that means you will need about a 7 x 13 x 1 in thick mold, so you will use about all of one jar of RTV for that one mold for one casting. So an important thing is how many molds of what size.
I would suggest getting a sheet of clear plexiglass, you can buy scraps at a plastic dealer very cheaply. Then cut masking tape to the width of
I recently had many of the same questions about molding. I have the benefit of being close a a TAP plastics store, of which the manager is also a model railroader. He directed me to their website which has some really good instructional/informational videos. http://www.tapplastics.com/info/video.php
Cary - the construction of a large and complex urban scene, even just the background skyline, is an expensive undertaking, regardless of how it is approached. For example, my own 3’x11’ high density urban scene, about 2/3’s of it pictured below, is based mostly on kitbashed commercially available kits and cost me somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 to create about 5 years ago. Today it would be significantly more.
I will note that, to be believable, the buildings/building flats need to show considerable diversity and that would require making many molds, casting a wide range of wall sections, and necessitating an outlay of cash probably equal to, or in excess of, what it would cost to simply buy multiple commercial kits whose individual wall sections could be mixed and matched to create a wide range of multiple structures.
