Casting Transparent Resin Miniatures

[Featherstone]

I'm looking to cast some transparent "cloaked" duplicates of a few 15mm minis I own. Seems like nobody's done it before, though, and lived to tell about it (or at least post pics online ). Just to be clear, these are for personal use and not for profit.

Any suggestions for how best to do this? Transparent resin and silicon mold? Clay mold? Hot glue?

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I'm sure I've seen tutorials using the clear casting that you can find in craft stores (HobbyCraft in the UK).

Good luck.

Tony
https://resincraftsblog.com/diy-clear-casting-resin-paperweights/

[Dags]

Have you got permission from the original manufacturer to do this?

Because without that, even with your provisos, it is still recasting and morally, and in some countries, legally wrong.

[FifteensAway]

Since you are going for cloaked miniatures - by which I assume you mean they can't be seen - there is no need for a precise casting but just a shape to represent at most, or so it seems to me, where the item is.  And even that seems to defeat the purpose of being cloaked.  Other players should not know where the cloaked miniature is - until revealed uncloaked.  So, no need for any casting on the playing surface.  And that avoids the ethical issue and saves the trouble of casting.  There you go, problem solved and your reputation, possibly, preserved. 

[EndTransmission]

If you really want miniatures for the cloaked troops, you could also take a page out of the GW LotR book and have an empty scenic base

To be a bit more helpful, I've not used clear resin before, but have done casting of my own bits and pieces in other types of resin. I would imagine that it one of the more delicate challenges with clear resin is making sure you have no bubbles in the mixed resin, which could be challenging if you have a 2 part mix.

[SBRPearce]

In a previous life, I helped make theater and film props (nano-budget and no-budget productions, sadly) To avoid getting air bubbles in a clear resin (or, technically, to avoid seeing the bubbles which are there anyway) we cast them under pressure.

My boss used an old pressure-cooker pot as the vessel for this process. We'd fill the molds, put them into the pot, seal the lid and run the compressor up so the vessel was under 3-5 atmospheres of pressure. At this point, I'd usually hide behind his car (the workshop was squeezed into his large, cluttered garage) until the resin had set up, because I was sure the vessel or one of the fittings was going to fail and blow up in my face.

But I still have a face and most of the pieces turned out crystal-clear. You could see tiny inclusions and bubbles under bright light and a magnifier, but otherwise, beautiful.

You can probably find a YouTube video showing how to do this in a non-potentially-explosive way.

[Mr Tough Guy]

In a previous life, I helped make theater and film props (nano-budget and no-budget productions, sadly) To avoid getting air bubbles in a clear resin (or, technically, to avoid seeing the bubbles which are there anyway) we cast them under pressure.

My boss used an old pressure-cooker pot as the vessel for this process. We'd fill the molds, put them into the pot, seal the lid and run the compressor up so the vessel was under 3-5 atmospheres of pressure. At this point, I'd usually hide behind his car (the workshop was squeezed into his large, cluttered garage) until the resin had set up, because I was sure the vessel or one of the fittings was going to fail and blow up in my face.

But I still have a face and most of the pieces turned out crystal-clear. You could see tiny inclusions and bubbles under bright light and a magnifier, but otherwise, beautiful.

You can probably find a YouTube video showing how to do this in a non-potentially-explosive way.

Interesting, never thought of casting under pressure, in a former life I flushed out of Dentistry school, but remember that for plaster dental models, we used to cast plaster under vacuum to reduce the amount of airbubbles, guessing that's a similar approach just in reverse, and maybe safer.

[SBRPearce]

Normal resin gets vacuumed before you pour it. Mix the two parts (in a container much larger than the actual volume of the fluid), put it into a vacuum chamber and drop the atmospheric pressure. Any inherent air bubbles expand enormously (frothing the resin to about 300% volume, briefly) and then pop, then you take it out of the VC and mold as normal.

This process is more common, because the failure-mode for a vacuum chamber or pump is, sad hiss - failed vacuum. Failure of a pressure vessel is much more exciting, for shrapnel values of "exciting".

[FifteensAway]

Don't know if this applies to resin as to plaster, but a shaker table to slowly work the bubbles out before casting with wax - a jewelry making technique - might be an option and doesn't require a vacuum (though helpful) or the hazards of high pressure = dangerous indeed, being an old navy hand who worked the steam powered engines, I remember well the admonishment that 1200 psi steam coming out of a pin prick hole is a great way to anesthetically sever a limb and thus ALWAYS use a board to seek out the source of a leak in order to keep your fingers and/or arm.

[Featherstone]

Thanks all for the several ideas!

I haven't reached out to any manufacturers yet re:casting, but then again I didn't have any specific miniatures chosen yet. The aesthetic I'm going for is less true invisibility, more optical camouflage in a near-future/sci-fi sense. Given the example below, strict detail isn't exactly necessary. I look forward to giving it a go (with the proper permissions)!

Incidentally, if there are manufacturers producing ranges of wholly transparent 15mm miniatures (or any scale!) I'd gladly take a look.

[Hammers]

Thanks all for the several ideas!

I haven't reached out to any manufacturers yet re:casting, but then again I didn't have any specific miniatures chosen yet.

Make sure you do. This is not just a player and collector friendly Forum, we also direct consideration towards miniature producers, of whom many work hard to eke out a living from producing miniatures. Creativity and ingenuity is celebrated here but infringement on intellectual property is not kindly looked upon.

[Captain Harlock]

Let me be brutaly honest. It doesnt worth the trouble for the kind of use you want those clear minis. First if all you need to do a proper mold. If you want it to be one piece then you will probably need a double mold. The small size of 15mm will make the process even more difficult. You will need the molding material and the resin for the casting. Even if you didst want clear minis getting bubble free minis, its challenging. You willl certainly need a vacuum chamber. I wouldn't recommend a pressure chamber aince tou are dealing with a potential bomb.
Unless you are intending to cast an invisible army, the material and tool will cost you 20x more than ready made minis and i didnt include the exciting emotional times where you will curse, throw stuff around and possibly bark at the moon.

[Featherstone]

Valid concerns, all. Thank you again for the guidance—always happy to learn here. Out of respect for IP and interest in maintaining life and limb, I don't think I'll be continuing with this idea any time soon.

[zemjw]

Have you considered 3d printing in clear resin?

It's worth having a look to see if there's anything out there.

[AndrewBeasley]

The other way I have seen is to create a 'flat' of the figure out of Perspex - just cut the general outline / template of the figure and base as normal.


A lot simpler as some clear plastics can be cut via laser.


You can get very smart and etch the outline of belts / jackets / boots etc by having the laser at lower power and creating a white shadow on the figure.


A lot of lasers (or their owners)  will take SketchUp or Inkscape data files where one colour determines a through cut and one a shade.