"Is casting and mold-making really this easy?" Topic

Pretty much.

Except for the fact that the mould may pour badly and leave undercuts and voids that wreck the castings and/or the mould. Figure design is important and its placing and orientation in the mould are both important factors in quality.

Yes, but the learning process is in placing the figure and learning to cut decent kiss-gates and getting the venting right…

It takes a lot of practise to get these things down pat.

Mike

Casting figures, easy.
Casting quality figures, a lifetime to learn.

If someone asked my advice I would say take your time at each stage to get it right. There are no short cuts.

yes it is easy now after 30 years of practice!

yes it is easy now after 30 years of practice!

Tell me about it… I gave up on pulling my hair out years ago so now I just sigh and drop in the recycle pot.

"Casting figures, easy.
Casting quality figures, a lifetime to learn."

Yep.

Same goes with molding.

It's like saying that painting figures is easy. Brush plus paint plus reference material = end result of beautiful wargames army…or not.

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.'

It's a bit more of an art than a science.

Painting figures IS easy.
Sculpting figures is easier to do but takes more time.
Making good moulds is much harder to do.
Casting with good moulds and proper equipment is easy again.

After years of practice of cource.

What Geoff said, there is an art to creating and casting.

We can show you how to make a mold and spin cast in one hour --then you will spend the next 30 years pulling your hair out.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

You can put money on the figure that cast perfectly the last 50 times and put back in the pot refuses to fill properly when you get an order for the thing…

As the creator of those videos, I can say it's that easy for me, but I have been doing it a decade! It is more art than science but not super hard if you are mechanically minded and good at troubleshooting.

great video, funny part. "I know where everything is…. I swear." lol

As others have said, it really is an art in many ways. Each mould will have it's own 'personality' for want of a better word, and you've got to know each one to get full, quality castings every time. Even then it often doesn't go perfectly anyway!

As to your moulding question, the white metal has a melting point of over 200 Celcius, so it wouldn't melt at 320 Fahrenheit (160 Celsius).

The moulding temp can be varied depending on what you're moulding, and the sculpts will usually survive mostly intact. The bigger problem for the sculpts is the amount of pressure they're under, so anything with a weak/incomplete armature, or superglued arms, or generally 'sticky out' bits can break easily.

we use low temp silicone rubber for metal moulds and it is cooked at 100 deg, so we can use plastic and green stuff without a problem.
the pressure is a problem for fragile parts, but if you make the moulds ok things can survive the process only to be broken getting the master out of the mould, if the mould is ok then you can use the first few casts as masters for the next mould and not use the broken master, some masters survive quite well, other damaged beyond repair!