 Editor in Chief Bill   | 20 Apr 2026 8:21 p.m. PST |
You were asked – TMP link Did You Ever Try Home-Casting Figures?60% said "no, I have never tried home casting of figures"
39% said "yes, I have tried home casting of figures" |
 miniMo  | 20 Apr 2026 8:45 p.m. PST |
A little stovetop casting way back when.
I shudder now to think of the lead fumes, glad I didn't do a whole lot! |
| Zephyr1 | 20 Apr 2026 9:47 p.m. PST |
I went the dental spin caster route to cast my own sculpts (EVERY mistake shows up in metal!), and have near 50 lbs of pewter in the garage. Haven't had time to play with it lately. It's definitely an expen$ive hobby… |
 Wolfshanza | 20 Apr 2026 10:27 p.m. PST |
Did some decades ago. Always cast outside. It's all in a tote, somewhere ? <lol> |
| 14Bore | 21 Apr 2026 2:08 a.m. PST |
I made the metal parts, carved and casted, just haven't tried minis. Am working on another a bit more ambitious |
 John the OFM | 21 Apr 2026 7:39 a.m. PST |
I tried, ages ago. The Dow silicone was extremely messy, and my attempts at piracy gave horrible results.
It became clear that I would need to develop a new hobby on top of the one I already had.
So I noped out of it. |
| Tgerritsen | 21 Apr 2026 9:38 a.m. PST |
Ages ago my friend had a Prince August set and let me borrow it. A friend of mine went whole hog and put a full casting setup in his garage and even cast things for companies that asked for it. It was a huge set up, but he moved and gave the casting equipment away to a different friend. Today I consider 3D printing the modern form of home casting. |
| Sgt Slag | 21 Apr 2026 12:05 p.m. PST |
Did PA fantasy molds around 2000 AD. I have dreams of sculpting fantasy ship models, around 1/1000 scale, making open face molds of them using high temp RTV silicone, for a fantasy ship battle game I'd like to write and publish, when I retire. Retirement is about nine years away -- feels like it is decades away, still… Cheers! |
| Hal Thinglum | 21 Apr 2026 12:14 p.m. PST |
In the middle 80's I did Isandlawana in 25mm. All of the British and Allies, over 1,000 of them, were Ral Partha, Minifig, and Tradition. The Zulus,some 3,000 of them were composed of many Ral Partha, Minifigs and Garrison figures. I didn't have the funds to purchase enough Zulus so I purchased a number of molds from Joel Haas. I think they were $5.00 USD each. Very easy to cast and most were very adequate. Most of them were destroyed when I was rear-ended near Historicon after driving for 14 hours. I also did the same for the Sudan 🇸🇩 as far as casting natives from Joel's molds. |
 piper909 | 22 Apr 2026 9:14 p.m. PST |
I had a similar experience to the OFM's, back in 1980-81. Abandoned my efforts after a few less than satisfactory results. I was frustrated at the inability to buy more 25mm historical figures from MiniFigs at that time and wanted to cast enough for my languishing armies from the few sample figures I owned. But the effort was not successful in the main. Eventually I found alternate suppliers for most of the things I wanted. |
| Zephyr1 | 24 Apr 2026 9:42 p.m. PST |
My best casting efforts have been replica doubloons and pieces-of-eight that I sculpted (they're beautiful to make) and figure armatures in varying scales (which will save a LOT of work when I get back to sculpting… ;-) |
