Help what material can you use for a mold for resin????

[Roydraven]

Hey all just wondering if anyone who casts resin can tell me what mold material they use for a resin casting can you still use ultracal 30 or do you have to use silicon or fibreglass
and what release agents do you use for them just wondering cause I want to make leg armor that is resin and a backpack as well???????

 

[Uratz]

You'll need to use Silicone for the mold to cast resin parts. The principal is Soft Mold-Hard Casting or Hard mold-Soft casting.
I've seen people use latex for quick molds but latex tends to shrink and rot so not good for making lost lasting molds.

 

[munson]

What about a plaster mold? I see the process in the book I purchased from The Monster Makers. They make a mold from the sculpture by putting plaster on it (at least I believe that's what they use). Then I believe they dump the latex and wait for it to set. The repeat this until a desired thickness is achieved.

Couldn't this process of using a plaster mold [mothermold I guess?], but use resin instead of latex to make the actual product?

Isn't a mothermold a mothermold?

 

[Uratz]

Plaster molds is commonly use to cast latex parts. I use plaster to create a mothermold or jacket mold that "grabs" on to silicone mold to hold the soft silicone mold in a precise shape. This is a Matrix mold. I do this a lot for my Bio molds.

 

[xdmray]

unless you are casting a half sphere you will never get a resin cast out of a plaster mold. hard mold- soft cast. soft mold- hard cast. they need to be oppostie of each other.

and the term mother mold refers to the hard mold around a soft mold for retaining shape

 

[Roydraven]

You'll need to use Silicone for the mold to cast resin parts. The principal is Soft Mold-Hard Casting or Hard mold-Soft casting.
I've seen people use latex for quick molds but latex tends to shrink and rot so not good for making lost lasting molds.

thanks mate that's awesome info XD thanks again I thought it was like that just wanted to check cause I'm still a noob LOL
and don't want to waste the cash is there any release agents you have to use with making a mother mold onto the silicon or will it just release???

 

[munson]

Thanks for the info guys! Appreciated!

 

[Elkman]

Hey all just wondering if anyone who casts resin can tell me what mold material they use for a resin casting can you still use ultracal 30 or do you have to use silicon or fibreglass
and what release agents do you use for them just wondering cause I want to make leg armor that is resin and a backpack as well???????

As others have mentioned, if you want to make a casting in resin or some other hard material, you'll need to make the mold in silicone or some other soft material. Otherwise, your hard casting will be locked into the hard mold if there are any undercuts or anything else that might trap it in there.

As far as release agents go, that sort of depends on what your mold material is and what material you're using to do your casting. I've done my molds in Smooth-On silicone rubber, and done my castings in Smooth-On Smooth-Cast 300 plastic. Technically, you don't need to use a release agent for casting polyurethane in silicone, but they recommend it, so I've been using Mann Ease Release 200.

I'm working on writing up a Huntorial showing how I do mold making and casting with pourable silicones. I'll try to post that tonight. I'll also post one on brushable silicones when I get to it. In the meantime, I have some overview of how I did the process when I posted my story of the Zebraman costume.

 

[munson]

Plaster molds is commonly use to cast latex parts. I use plaster to create a mothermold or jacket mold that "grabs" on to silicone mold to hold the soft silicone mold in a precise shape. This is a Matrix mold. I do this a lot for my Bio molds.

Thanks for the response.

So a plaster mold is mainly used for parts like the Predator Head, 3/4 head, hands, and feet--sweet!

So I understand this correctly about a silicone mold. I would sculpt, apply silicone [layers until a thickness is achieved], then this would produce a mother mold. Pour resin in and it forms the final product [pouring excess out]. And for a two-piece mold, you would layer silicone around my sculpture, and this will form a mother mold--needing a dividing wall. Then key the two pieces. Connect them, pour resin in and this produces the final product.

I know I ask a lot of questions, and believe me--I'm great-full for everyone's patience and responses.