OK Guys.. As promised here are a few pictures and Part 1 of the Re-Casting Tutorial for the TRON Joysticks.
The finished sticks will be available soon.... but I'm still working on a price. I'm hopeful that it will come in under around £12 GBP per set. That's about $19 to $20 USD at the current exchange rate. This will include the two stick halves and the trigger.
Rather than use the commercial process, that we normally use when casting things, I felt it was important to do this using a more domestic approach, that would allow as many people as possible to have a go at casting their own parts if they want to. So! Lets get started.
Materials List:
1 X Original Item. To cast from (In this case a TRON Stick Handle)
2 X Litres of (18 Shore A) Silicone Rubber Mold Compound
2 X Cans of Silicon Rubber Catalyst (Hardener)
1 X Can of Thixotropic Compound (Thickens the pouring rubber)
1 X Roll of Brown Packing Tape.
1 X Large Sheet of Mounting Cardboard
1 X 5 Kg Bag Of Plaster Of Paris
1 X Kg of Wax Based Plastiscene (Non Setting Modelling Clay, MUST be wax based and NOT Oil Based)
4 X Glass Beads about ½" in diameter.
The above plus some nylon mixing jugs, scales, stirring sticks and a few other bits and bobs comes to a total cost of around $120 USD. (excluding the cost of the item you are casting from). Silicone Rubber Mold Compound is not cheap stuff!! But there are a few things we can do to use the minimum amount, and still retain the mold integrity.
This is the rubber we are casting the mold with. It produces extremely fine detail reproduction and hopefully will produce some very nice re-casts when we get to the resin stage. The detail it can reproduce is as fine as a finger print on the surface of the object. Silicone Rubber molds however, are not perfect and like a copy of anything, the finished item will never be 100% the same as the original and will have some process induced blemishes!! Pretty close to perfect though and for our purposes, as near as we need to get.
Here's the Joystick half that we're going to cast from. We need to block up any large holes or gaps to stop the rubber flowing into the inside. Otherwise we won't be able to get it out of the mold. Smaller holes like the screw holes can be blocked with a piece of packing tape. Very little, will actually stick to packing tape, including most resins and mold compounds.
Silicone Rubber has some very interesting properties. One of them is that it is self releasing! That means that we don't have to use any release compounds or waxes to get the mold to separate from the original item. The same applies, when we later come to pour the resin into the finished mold, no release compound is needed, thus helping to preserve the detail.
Next we mount the stick half onto a board, which is again covered in packing tape to make separation easier. You will also see that we have half embedded the glass beads into the surface. These will form a depression in this half of the mold, and allow the second half of the mold to be accurately re-located when we come to cast from it.
Although it's not shown in the photograph, the bottom of the stick has been sealed with some of the Wax Based modelling clay, this is again to prevent the rubber flowing into the inner part of the stick. The clay MUST! be wax based. Oil based versions will react with the rubber as it sets and prevent it curing properly.
Now we form a wall around the original object to retain the silicone and plaster. Again this is covered in packing tape. The object is retained on the board, with a single screw just to keep it from moving.
Once this is completed we mix the Rubber and the Catalyst in the proportions listed by the manufacturer. In this case, the Catalyst is coloured bright red, so it's easy to see when the two are properly mixed. Stir carefully and slowly!!! This is very important, as we don't want to introduce air bubbles into the mix. We also added a Thixotropic Agent at this stage, to make the compound slightly thicker and to stop it from flowing straight off the object.
This is the part where Brax (Brad) has a heart attack as we cover his lovely joystick handle with all this rubber goop!! Making sure that all of the surface is well covered.
Sit back! Have a cup of tea and wait two hours for it to set up.
Next we pour a layer of Plaster Of Paris over the top to almost fill up the box. This will act as a mother mold and support the finished rubber mold when we come to cast in it.
Once it has all set, We turn it over and prepare to cast the inner half of the mold. More pics to follow.......... Sometime Soon...
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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Topic: TRON JOYSTICK HANDLES (Recasting) PART 1 (Read 62141 times)
