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While putting some of my MOY's in order I came across my Y4-2 Shand Mason, that had 2 crew members that were AWOL, as is often the case on this model, that and the famous headless firemen. I know that replacements are available, however being the DIYer that i am, I thought i would have a go at making my own.
A couple members of the crew of the white horse team had gone missing

a crew member from the black horse crew as borrowed and along with some thermo plastic pellets and a cup of hot water I set to work

the pellets were heated and then using the borrowed crewman I created a simple two part mold by pressing the firemen halfway into one side, allowing it to cool thouroughly and harden and then pressing the hot thermo plastic onto the other side, to create the second half of the mold. A small relief hole was drilled in one of the mold halves to let excess resin escape and some alignment pins were made by pressing a ballpoint peen into the first mold half while it was still pliable. After fully cooling the mold halves were separated and the original fireman removed from the mold.

I then filled each of the mold halves with my casting resin, which in this case was JB Weld epoxy.
The halves were then pressed together, clamped and allow to cure.


After curring the mold was placed in a bit of warm (not boiling hot) water to help open it et voila the missing fireman had magically appeared

with just a bit of trimming and a a wee bit of filing he was ready to be painted up

a pin was added for the driver and a hole drilled for the firemen fixing points

All done, with the crew complete once again.

zBret

That's a very neat job! Much better than the metal replacements. Now you have the moulds you could go into business with these.

Thanks Bob. That's interesting, I hadn't realized the replacement firemen were cast in metal. I had assumed they were done in plastic. The molds that make I would consider disposable, as they are just good for one casting. They deform a bit when reheating to liberate the figure from the mold. The nice thing about the thermo plastic though is that it can be re-heated again and re-used, so its good for makin one off, small castings. Now... if i had some really nice multi cavity molds and an injection molding machine
zBret

Can you post this over on MOYBOYZ please, we have some Shand fanatics there that will be very interested in your workmanship.

YYS4BOB wrote:Can you post this over on MOYBOYZ please, we have some Shand fanatics there that will be very interested in your workmanship.

Done !

zBret

Tickets now available for the launch of a new toy company...ZBret Products Limited, Thermo Plastic, Resin and Diecast Metal castings a speciality.

Ghosty.

I'd be the guy in the stalag, making buttons and badges of rank, out of soup cans lol.

Here's a lil preview of what I have done with, some copper wire, superglue and baking soda. You can probably guess what part it is. It's still a work in progress, but will make a full post when I complete the project.


zBret

That's a very nice job. I've used the metal cast replacement firemen and they are nearly as much work to get them looking good and fitted to the model (plus I had to pay for the firemen).