I am working with a local sculptor on making some molds for her fine little pieces.
Smooth On resins for the pours and silicone for the molds.
That is a quarter!
The Barbarian's swords are down below Mary's little pieces.
The Little Ones...
I am working with a local sculptor on making some molds for her fine little pieces.
Smooth On resins for the pours and silicone for the molds.
That is a quarter!
A friend of mine has started a company making state of the art foam swords. The are molded, self skinning foam blade and heavier foam handle around a fiberglass core. I've made most of his molds and many of his model weapons. My molds have saved him time and money. A few shared ideas have lead to reconditioning silicone and other means of reducing silicone or PMC usage. I made or rebuilt 13 molds for him in the last month using less than 3 gallons of silicone and 2 gallons of PMC.
click the thumbs for the bigger picture...
The Hammers...
I made the model and molds for hammers. The big hammer below has been poured scores of times. Note the mold half alignment fixtures, the box the mold was poured in is used to support it during production. If you look closely you can see the nail heads in the molds.
The little hammer has many of the same features. This mold has been poured over a hundred times.
Daggers...
Jim has poured so many daggers I've replaced the orginal mold with one made new and two made by remanufacturing old style sword molds into dagger molds. The remanufacturing is apparent from the two colors of mold max silicone.
Longer blades...
This Spartan sword mold was made with production with the intention changing the production process. The design of the containment box allows the mold to be broken open, the sword removed, release agent applied, the mold reassembled, assembly locked down, and the core aligned in seconds. The secret to speed is repeatablility. The secret to repeatability is proper alignment. The secret to proper alignment is a secret.
The second other major change for production efficiency is the multiple out mold. This two out short sword mold is was made with a single model sword. the align of the mold halves is always dead on.
This is an older mold with nothing all that special about it. Except the for the standard alignment aids. It has been poured several hundred times.
This is first pour of the star sword handle. There was not quite enough foam in the pour. The technician was able to close the mold with more foam and use the pour.
This is a beast for a sword. The blade is about four feet long. The mold would be useless without the containment box. The handle mold never comes out of the box.
I have manufacturing experience with Statisticaly Process Control (SPC) and cellular manufacturing. I am familiar with both low volume, high value units (concrete pipe) and high volume, low cost product. I can make your molds.
I welcome any request, comments, and advice. My address is: Armorer@live.com
regards,
The Armorer"
19 Oct 2008; Put together and uploaded the html
15 Oct 2008; took the pictures