Green Stuff Cast Shoulder Pad
So I’m nearly done painting the Chaos Sorcerer. In the meantime I’ve got a small post on an test I did casting a Green Stuff shoulder pad.
In a recent post about silicone rubber and casting Green Stuff someone left a comment saying they were having a few problems casting a shoulder pad using my post as a guide. As they were asking for advice I figured I’d try a make my own cast of a shoulder pad to see where the issues may arise.
My initial thought was that the pot I used the previous example was too big for such a small item, and also a waste of rubber. Because of this I chose a plastic bottle top as the mold container, a perfect size for a single shoulder pad. I selected a spare Space Wolf pad and attached a small rod of plasticard so that I could locate the pad in the centre of the mold.
I then mixed a small amount of Liquid Blu-Stuff and poured it into the mold container, avoiding pouring it directly on the pad.
After 20 minutes I used a blunt metal tool to pry the mold from the container. Using a scalpel I sliced the mold open as close to the edge of the pad as possible, and removed the original pad. Then I cut a very small vent in the top for excess putty to be forced out of.
I mixed a small amount of Green Stuff and an equal sized amount of Magic Sculp, and then mixed them together. I carefully estimated how much I would need to fill the mold, with a little bit extra to be sure. Getting this amount just right is very important.
After inserting into the mold I gave it a good forcible squeeze till the putty could be seen through the tiny vent in the top.
The mold was then pushed back into bottle top so make sure it kept its shape. After being left over night to cure I removed the cast from the mold and cleaned off the small amount of excess flash.
As you can see the quality of the cast is pretty much as good as I could hope for. The key thing is using a soft enough epoxy putty mix and putting just the right amount into the mold. Not enough and the cast will have gaps in it, too much and the excess putty potentially distorts the mold and therefore the shape of the cast.
One good thing however is that the mold can be re-used as often as necessary and the cost of this tiny amount of putty is literally pence. The mold itself weighed just 9 grams, meaning I can get at least 20 of this size mold out of a single 200g purchase of Liquid Blu-Stuff (sorry if that sounds like a sales pitch, I’m just so pleased with it as a product).
