"New Homecast Space Cruisers" Topic

Hi Everyone,

Over the Summer I have been working on making some space cruisers for my fleets. I started off making fighters quite a long time ago having seen one of the members here on TMP make modern surface ships out of clay. I have used Milliput to make the masters and have then drop-cast them in metal using RTV silicone moulds. Since the fighters I have gone on to making corvettes/bombers, frigates and destroyers. They work out at about 1/1200th scale in my mind. Here are the cruisers all together and a close up of the ships of the fleets. There are more pictures over on the blog. It has been a real blast making these little ships.

Hope you like them.Comments and crits welcome.

link

Really wonderful work!

Very mipressive. Well done.

Dave

Well done! I need to work on my own custom fleets for a future project. Still undecided as to which medium and technology to use.

Well done!

really good

Nice work. It's been years since I have played space battles.

Those look really great!

Thanks for sharing your photos with us.

Great work

Thank you very much for all the great feedback guys.Now I want to create some rules to fight my fleets. That is the hard part as my attempts so far have only got to fighter vs fighter! The other thing I would like to consider are Battleships and Carriers but I fear they would be too large to do with drop-casting in one piece.

Very nice! Would you mind going into a bit more detail on your moldmaking and casting process, specifically what drop casting is?

Hi Jim,

Drop casting is also called gravity casting where you pour metal into a mould.

I started out using Prince August moulds and then made my own.

Essentially you make a mould. I use Room Temperature Vulcanising (RTV) Silicone Rubber and pour pewter/lead molten metal into it. I let it set for a few minutes and then separate the 2 halves of the mould.

I make my masters either in greenstuff or milliput.

Then I decide how big I want the mould to be so that it includes the pouring vent/plug. See Prince August moulds for this. It's the chamber you pour the metal into.

I make a lego rectangle and press plasticene into it. Half way up the lego.

After that I gently press the underside of the master into the plasticene.If you are casting a figure I usually press the back into the plasticene.If a space ship then the flatter underside.

I make vents from the extremities to the outside of the mould using toothpicks. This will allow hot gasses to exit the mould and allow the metal to fill up the voids.Hopefully.

After that I pour RTV silicone into the top half of the mould and leave to set for a day or so.

You need to push a pencil end into 2 places in the plasticene to create lugs so that the finished mould joins up correctly.See Prince August Moulds for this.

After that when the first half of the mould is set peal off the plasticene and get ready to pour the second half of the mould. The RTV rubber becomes the bottom half in the lego former.

Very importantly you need to brush on vasiline as this will stop the second half of the RTV silicone from bonding with the first half.

Then you pour the second half and leave for a day or so.

When you separate the set halves you remove the master and the toothpick vent formers.

Then dust the mould with talcum powder and blow off the residue.

With a flat bottomed ladle you then heat up some metal on your stove. Always have a sinkful of water at hand incase you burn youself and wear stout shoes and trousers. Think safety and work in a vetilated place.

You have to clamp the two sides of the moulds together. Often you will use thin wood/mdf between the RTV rubber and the moulds as this distributes the pressure better.

Then you pour the molten metal. Cross fingers at this point and pray to your god if you have one.

After about 5 minutes devide the two halves of the mould and you should have a finished figure.

Often this does not happen first time as the mould needs to warm up.Often the mould will stop behaving itself as it gets too hot so do not heat the metal beyond melting temperature as too hot can damage the RTV rubber.

Hope this helps. I wish there was an online tutorial as this seems a bit wordy.

This is what I use to make the moulds

mbfg.co.uk/gp-3481-f.html

Buy some Prince August moulds as this is what got me going and much will become understandable. They do lots of interesting figures.

All the best,

Nick