Anyone like some very rough progress pics? Fair warning, this is my first time doing any sort of molding. I'm learning a lot, but definitely missteps here and there. I'm fairly certain I won't need to buy any more models and that I can do this using molds and resin.
Updated album:
USS Centaur
I'm using alumilite products: quickset for the mold, and clear resin for casting. I actually ran out of quickset so I used the alumilite rubber mold for the second (top) part of the nacelle... I don't recommend it, it's a bit too flexible. I'm seeing if I can make do or if I have to re-mold the nacelle. I also use Polytek Pol-Ease 2500 as a release agent, basically spraying it before pouring in the resin. I used a lot of it so my second stage mold would release from the first stage, otherwise you might get a big rubber brick.
The parts that I need to make at least one copy of are: reliant bridge docking port, reliant nacelle pylon cover (both), excelsior bottom halves of the nacelle, and excelsior torp launcher. I'm making copies of the k'tinga greeble parts just because I made a mold for them anyways while I was practicing, so I might as well.
I used a cupcake mold just to hold all the alumilite quickset for the first two molds I made - I forgot to use mold release the first time, so you can see
here that it's not quite an even surface since some of the quickset stuck to the cupcake mold. The second mold came out much better, though the excelsior torp launcher fell over inside the mold...
The excelsior nacelle mold is much more difficult than a cupcake mold with greebles sitting in it. I hot-glued a craft board frame around both nacelles, filled the nacelles with clay for the first part of the mold, then filled the frame with maybe 3/4 cup of quickset. Once dried I removed the nacelle to reveal
this. Great detail, but lots of cleanup around the edges - looking back I probably cut off a bit too much of the mold during cleanup, but I'll live with it. I then took out the clay from the nacelles and used alumilite rubber for the second stage (top part) of the mold (but only because I ran out of quickset and could only get the rubber stuff locally, I definitely prefer the quickset). First run at making a copy of the nacelles was a partial success - the resin took a while to stiffen (I was worried about how bendy it was at first!), and it captured all the detail of the original nacelles.... but, there was an air bubble in one, and I used too much blue dye in the resin. You can see the first copies
here, note the air bubble on the upper nacelle near where it says WESTROCK.
I've got enough resin left for a few more copies, so more to follow. I'm having fun with this project though, and am already researching what kind of paints I'll need plus the lighting for the model. I'm also still waiting for a couple more models - the german flakvierling, and the M2 bradley. Hopefully they arrive soon!