Friday 2 November 2012

Thermoplastic resin for toymaking.

I discovered this stuff about 8 years ago when I was into making one off customs and was just teaching myself how to make two part molds.
I didn't want to invest in polyurethane and silicone and the rest to find out I couldn't use it, so I made two part plaster molds, and bought some of this stuff.
The first batch I bought was white. I got this blue stuff from a hobby shop in Japan. You just need to heat it to make it malleable.

It actually worked. I wet my finger to avoid getting it burned and pushed the molten resin all around the inside of the mold. Making a really tough hollow cast. You can throw it against a wall and it'll bounce back.

Since I discovered resin and got a pot - I didn't think i'd ever need thermoplastic. I've never once read about a toymaker using it.

I drilled my holes too big for the screws I needed to fit into the waist joint I made for treegarr. With a master model, it's ok to use putty and whatever else as it just needs to hold up for the mold-making process. But when it's a toy, it need to be much tougher - so Milliput would have been no good. Sooner or later, the toy would fall apart.

Using a heated up  pair of scissors as a sculpting tool, it's been possible to shape to plastic just enough to be a good filler. It's drillable and i've given the joints a good hard tug (I've got a 250 kilo grip, by the way) and they're holding up fine.

Heat it up enough and it's re-usable too. Which makes it great for small one part molds.

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