Wednesday 4 November 2015

Review - Re-useable blue-stuff casting plastic

Hi readers,



Today I am going to have a look at some casting plastic that I bought from www.greenstuffworld.com who sell a variety of modelling supplies and accessories. This is sold as blue-stuff on this site but also seems to be commonly known as Oyumaru and is shipped from Asian provinces of the world. 

I'd just like to mention that I am not going to be using this to cast whole models or the like and "stick it to GW" but I am going to use this to reproduce one off casts or just lift details so that I can add them to conversions such as my land raider which will feature further down the page.

I'd rather this post wasn't about the ethics of casting things, I think only casting the odd thing here and there to avoid paying extortionate bits costs because you aren't supplied with enough parts or because the only other feasible way is cutting something up which is expensive then its excusable. I don't support full re-casters though so please don't suggest or peddle them here. 

Anyway, with that out of the way lets get down to brass tacks. This is what one stick looks like when it arrived:


I recently purchased some land raider detailing from Scibor that doesn't actually fit where it is supposed too! But I still wanted the lion detailing to add some Dark Angel Specific 30k-ness to my Spartan conversion.

So here is the bit I wanted to copy the lions head from:


After dipping one of the blue bricks in boiling water for about 3 minutes it becomes all pliable and sticky, be careful to take it out with a spoon so you don't burn yourself!

I then smushed the blue stuff on top of the lion head and squished it with some spare plastic packaging:



(I actually did two at the same time but you can't really see either anyway!)

And here is the left over impressions along with one of the original pieces:


I then made up a batch of fine grade milliput and placed it in the molds, I forgot to take a picture of this stage but here is the final piece after I trimmed the excess flash from it:


And both cast lion heads together:


And here they are actually stuck on to my spartan conversion as detailing:



Overall this was very very easy, these were both my first goes and I am happy with the fidelity of detail that came out of the casting process and they have added some much needed detail to my tank.

I would heartily recommend this product if, like me, you just want to make some simple detail casts for conversions and the like. I may well try some two part mold casting in the future but that would have to be for some very specific reasons.

Peace out,

Rob

4 comments:

  1. GW used to (in the not too distant past) show you how to make green stuff moulds for casting small bits, as long as its for personal use and you're using bits you own, I don't think there are any ethical issues.

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    1. I do remember those articles, but I feel that with smaller companies there is still an ethical consideration given that they have a vastly reduced market share and profit margin. Enough of a consideration that it sits uneasily with me anyway. Not so with GW parts I must say. Thanks for the comment!

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  2. Ooh, I'm definitely going to have to look into this stuff. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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  3. I use this stuff a lot to make press mould ect with it. Really useful and you can get some good results. I am experimenting now with liquid rubber mould making and resin casting. A lot more work but you can cast fibber stuff with it

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