casting in resin

[phatman]

Going through a post about where to get cheap hex bases. i was a little dismayed, that no one made a strong argument for casting resin. i will use casting resin for my other hobby. ( n scale model railroading).  i have only made a few hex bases, and yes there is a learning curve with using resin. i have made several bases for holding trees and such( as it helps to transition players to using gaming terrain). and while i use the IWM bases for my mech's why not use my own for my terrain bits.( such as blast markers and strafing markers)  as an aside, the casting supplies cost around $0.01 per base.

[worktroll]

If you're already working in resin, then you've started/finished your learning curve. If one hasn't, there are simpler alternatives. Resin is - to the uninitiated - fiddly.

In a vague way, it's why I don't get into 3D printing. If I spent the time to do it properly, I'd not have time to do the modding/painting I enjoy. I used to make hex bases from clay; now I buy plastic ones in bulk.

[Jhousdan]

Using alumalite, i use about 2ml of each mixture to make just enough resin for annex base (if using alumalite, its important to make sure you use equal parts of both fluids)

[DarkSpade]

I've have made some resin hex bases, but the results have been mixed.  I'd say I was scrapping at least half if not more. Either they wouldn't be level or had too many holes.  There's plenty of tricks to avoid those issues, but the resin kept curing on me before I could try any of them.  Once it even cured mid pour!

Some day I'll hunt down a slower setting resin.

[Jhousdan]

I have a simple, one-piece mold, and I think of the 30 or so bases I've made using that mold, I've *maybe* had 2 go bad because I mixed my resin poorly (in both cases it was a rush job, so you get what you give). Usually I just keep that mold on hand when I'm pouring something else and use it for any leftover resin I've got.

One or two swipes of the sanding stick and maybe a couple of cuts with a xacto knife on one or two of the edges, and they're perfectly fine.

I have a two-piece mold for hollow hex bases, but I dont typically use that, preferring to buy metal ones.

[DarkSpade]

A quick once over with a sanding stick wasn't going to help these uneven bases.  Sometimes the bases were clearly thicker on one side than the other.  Other times, the bottom was rounded. Once or twice it was an issue with improper mixing, but those were really obvious by the finished color.

I like the concept and will do it again some day.  Just not with whatever it was I picked up at Hobby Lobby.  I'm not kidding when I said I've seen it cure mid pour and I was generally only making 6 hexes at a time.  Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I did order a different resin to work with.  Wonder what I did with it.  ???

[Jhousdan]

With an open-ended one piece mold, I let gravity settle how flat the bottom is. I only have to sand down where it gathers in the corners .

I won't say my hexbases are so flat you could calibrate your level on them, but they dont wobble!

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  I've done bases out of lead, sculpey, plaster, plastics, resin and have had great results with each. To make resin worthwhile, I'd make 5-10 molds out of silicon, while I would sandcast 4 lead bases at a time. Sculpey was the easiest, as I could just use a photocopied template, custom fit the mini, and bake several in a used toaster oven. The plastic was easy -I made a sculpey mold and filled it with my glue gun. The same sculpey mold worked with plaster but again, you may as well cast a batch with multiple molds.

  I did the lead sand casting after a friend dumped a load of minis and I had no qualms about melting them down, as many were in poor shape or were large dragons that I had no interest in assembling. I used to freelance as a jeweler so I already had the casting rig but if you have access to large amounts of cheap lead and tin, a sand casting kit is cheap and can be used many times.