Too scared to start

Ronin, did you apply burlap to your plaster? if not you may and to add more plaster, smooth it out and add that plaster stripping in both directions, it will make it much stronger. Aside from that it looks great!
 
Ronin, did you apply burlap to your plaster? if not you may and to add more plaster, smooth it out and add that plaster stripping in both directions, it will make it much stronger. Aside from that it looks great!

good idea. i was thinking along similar lines and buying some of the pre-soaked bandages, just place them in water and away you go.
 
good idea. i was thinking along similar lines and buying some of the pre-soaked bandages, just place them in water and away you go.


Exactly, lay them in one direction and then go back and lay them in the other, and at a hey point where the plaster isn't hard but not soft wet your hands and smooth it all out, this will get rid of any possible pressure/high stress points in your jacket.
 
Well i have modded my original bucket (again :angry ) and am now happy with the results. I am going to mould it again next month and start to pull the fibreglass ones in March hopefully.

Let me know what you guys think of the new shape (you can see the extension lines on the bucket)

the mandibles are slightly too wide (by about 2-3mm) but i am happy with it for version 1

boots 001.jpg


boots 002.jpg
 
Looks pretty damn nifty to me. I'm about to mold mine up....One thing I'd reccommend is get a decent set of scales as my first molds were pretty poor and one didn't work at all. These a re a few tips Neil Gorton of Millenium FX gave me

"try and get ones that do between 2 and 5grams minimum increments. 2gm being preferable. Imagine if you want to weigh a 100gm of silicone. The catalyst at 10% will be 10gms but if you have scales that only go in 5gm increments you could weigh out up to 14gms and still it will read as 10gms.

At least with a 2gram increment you can get within 1gram of being accurate on small volumes."

He also said that for the first two thin coats of silicone you shoud use 11% catalyst instead of 10 and add a few drops of the accelarator. I made the mistake of throwing in a ton of catalyst as I wanted it to cure NOW:) but all that did was make the rubber weak that when I demolded the piece the rubber tore as too much cat weakens it a lot.

when you want to build thickness you can use cheap mutton cloth instead of bunging in a load of thixo, simply dip it in the silicone and drape if over the surface like you would if you used plaster bandages as a jacket mold.. This way you can get a mold of upto 4mm thickness from a load of silicone that cost only 20 quid or so, then you can do a fibreglass or plaster jacket and get tens of pulls out of it.

Anyways enough rambling......I think you're onto a winner with this one mate. Nice work.
 
Excellent sculpt! I think you've got the overall feel of the helmet spot on. If i could mention just one thing though, is the R/H ear cap top slightly too long? This is the first thing that jumped out at me...
 
How did I ever miss this thread?

That is awesome! I love seeing bucket mold progress threads. I can totally emphathize with you though on the fear of ruining a scratchbuild when making the mold for it. I am going to have to do this next month when I start making the Dark Trooper runs


-=QuinN!
 
Yeh I've just started with this kind of thing, and even though I know I'm jumping the gun (gotta build the bucket first) where do you get your supplies from? Somewhere in Norwich or online?
 
You can't go wrong than try Mouldlife here in the UK. They supply a good number of professional FX houses and came to me on the recommendation of someone in the biz they are really good to deal with too and very helpful. Try Tinsil 70-25 seems a good all round molding rubber to me.
 
Hi guys

thanks for the kind comments on this one. I think in response to earlier comments, that r/h ear cap might be slightly too long but not by much (it fits the two differently supplied ear caps that i have bought so shouldn't be a problem).

the silicone i have been using was purchesed in the UK from a company in Norwich called Marplas. They are really friendly and will offer shed loads of help and advise.

i should be recasting in about two weeks time and then pulling the first FG bucket around March. I was thinking around £60 ($100) per bucket, primed and trimmed (approx $120 with the visor fitted). I will let you all know the final price when i pull the first bucket.
 
This thread is more than 17 years old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

  1. This thread hasn't been active in some time. A new post in this thread might not contribute constructively to this discussion after so long.
If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top