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Author Topic: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread  (Read 34956 times)

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Offline Lorizael

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #300 on: July 13, 2011, 05:06:54 PM »
A reliable source tells me they're spin-casting the Finecast stuff.

Offline Unlimited

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #301 on: July 13, 2011, 05:32:11 PM »
A reliable source tells me they're spin-casting the Finecast stuff.

This is an interesting development.

So metal is great to spin-cast because it cures so quickly and is dense enough to force the air out of the voids in the mold when you spin it. You only have to spin the thing for about 10 seconds (including ramp-up and slow-down time) to get a good cast out of it.

A thermoset (two-part epoxy) resin could not be spin-cast unless you spin the mold for between 5 and 10 minutes to account for curing time. This is the stuff I work with most often. I guess it's technically possible?

Then there's thermoplastic resin. Which is pretty much the most dirt-cheap material you can buy for something like this. Like metals, thermoplastics melt into a liquid when heated to a certain temperature (unlike thermoset resins which will actually burn). Polystyrene is a prime example of a thermoplastic material. Unfortunately, thermoplastics suck for spin-casting because when you spin the mold and sling the material into the voids it isn't dense enough to force all the bubbles through to the center.

This is an interesting development, indeed.

Offline Angrygreek

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #302 on: July 13, 2011, 07:32:49 PM »
Quote
One heavy rubber mold will get probably 200
oops, missed the rest. That's ok. With standard thermoset resin, you are LUCKY if you get close to 100 casts from a mold. So now add the cost of making more molds into the mix.

As for the bioresins; they are fabricated solely from plant material compared to the oil by-product that we have grown accustomed to.

I've toyed with spincasting resin. The resin I use 'sets' within a few minutes. If the mould were centrifuged while the resin was still at a low viscosity starting at a low speed, then building speed as the resin thickened, I can see it working. Thing is, we're talking about a three minute process here. Currently I pour my mould, move it to a vibrating table or a pressure pot (depending on the mold) and forget it. Take into account the setting time of bioresin is MUCH longer. The sprues that the finecast pieces come on are indicative of spincasting though; I personally don't know how GW is going about the casting process (but I would LOVE to learn).
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Offline Unlimited

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #303 on: July 13, 2011, 11:05:27 PM »
As for the bioresins; they are fabricated solely from plant material compared to the oil by-product that we have grown accustomed to.

I may need to look into these! We've been looking to switch over to a more environmentally-friendly resin.

The sprues that the finecast pieces come on are indicative of spincasting though; I personally don't know how GW is going about the casting process (but I would LOVE to learn).

I would also like to know how they do it. I absolutely overlooked the turnover prices of the new molds when I did my rough pricing estimates--I kind of just assumed they would make them (for spincasting, that is, if that's what they actually use) out of the same type of high-temperature rubber used for white-metal molds. Heavy molds like that would be really durable and could survive many more resin casts than they could for metal.

But I've never tried spin-casting resins. Not even accidentally. Would you happen to know what kind of mold materials would be necessary for that?

Offline Coldhatred

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #304 on: July 15, 2011, 12:24:25 PM »
If it is true, here's hoping for Sister's of Battle to become resin.  I've been wanting to do them for ages, but so much metal throws me off.
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Offline evildrcheese

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Re: GW going from metal to resin discussion thread
« Reply #305 on: July 15, 2011, 04:15:30 PM »
If it is true, here's hoping for Sister's of Battle to become resin.  I've been wanting to do them for ages, but so much metal throws me off.

If I were you I wouldn’t be holding my breath for GW to release 'standard' sisters in resin when the WD codex comes out...talk of the town is it's just a stop-gap until we get a proper codex (Haven't we already waited long enough!), and once the full codex comes out we'll probably get plastic sisters, now that I am excited about!

I personally love the metal sisters, so I'm happy that I've got 2000 points worth already for when the WD codex comes out...Although I am looking forward to get some characters/HQ choices in resin, but again I don’t anticipate this happening until the ‘real’ codex arrives.

 


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