Topic: Hex Nuts - An Exploration

[Colonel Shofer]

Just posted this on another site, in a thread on such things. Thought might be useful ...

I will have a go at this, just to see if I can

I will try two methods:

A latex mold and a Gelflex mold. I expect the Gelflex to work fine, but that will come later, as that presents different problems.

So, here we go. The reason why this is just an experiment, is that I have a  supply of Plastruct hex rods, so I selected a 3.2 mm rod and suspended it above a milk bottle top and added cheap, liquid latex (no 'catalyst') and let it dry on top of my warm, cable box . After drying (about 28h) here it is (tbh, I clipped a little of the 'meniscus' away):



Rod out:



From above:



Now for the copy materials. Resins are not good with latex (and I do not have any ), so I used quick-setting, two-part epoxy. Here it is mixed and poured:



I used a cocktail stick to agitate and remove bubbles as it set (in about 10 minutes).

Here it is out of the mold:



A little black paint, so you can see the shape:



Close, ready for tidying and use.



3.2 mm

Now, seems a lot of work for one nut !!! However, it would be easy for me to create a battery of hex masters on a Plastruct sheet, creating a latex base with a hundred holes, giving one hundred hexs, repeatedly; no problem.

OK, I will report on the Gelflex version soon (trying small metal nuts, presently), but I will buy some hex brass rod for tiny nuts.

Hope you enjoyed 

CS

[Jonik]

Sorry if this is rather blatant... but why? What are they for?

[Colonel Shofer]

Well, nothing

Actually, scratch builders are always looking for such things, to put on vehicles and terrain, often in large numbers.

Also, does not have to be hex nuts

CS

[Mad Dok Brown]

The obvious question would be: Why would you make hex nuts when you could just measure and cut the hex rod stick.

But the curious question is: What else could you make with this? and How much detail shows through with this method? Im noticing that cast hex nut is rather rough or is it actually smoother than it look?

[Colonel Shofer]

Howdie,

Because the 'competition', elsewhere, was to see how one could make loads of nuts

Once the multiple latex mold was made, then thousands would be easy, and at a tiny cost, in comparison to polystyrene.

What you see in the images are tiny air bubbles, trapped in the quick-curing epoxy, slow-curing epoxy and a little warming would avoid that. There are also tiny artefacts from the latex curing, but creating a proper latex mold (by painting) would remove that too - but perfect reproduction was not the aim

However, even these surfaces are sharp and flat enough for most miniature jobs.

Cheers.

CS.

[Colonel Shofer]

I was just given the brilliant advice of using Allen Keys, as the master, therefore not requiring any PS rod.

CS

[Colonel Shofer]

'Final', low temperature results, here:

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=32064#32064

CS