110 The Navajo Mining Railway - People For the Depot - Casting Call!

I'm going to take the set of people that I bought and make molds of them, along with the baggage.  This is legal, by the way, so please don't send me letters.  It is ONLY illegal if you sell the castings.  These are masters for my own use.  Cast away!

To cast the baggage (the more forgiving start) I'll need some plastic, release agent, and molding clay.

The clay had to be mushed around a bit to get soft enough to use.  I used my daughter's Play-Dough rolling pin to roughly flatten it out.  I never perfectly flatten it so that the mold halves line up better.

The cart is a bit difficult to mold as is, so I'm going to take the bags off and just cast them separately.

On the clay I start laying out the baggage for pouring.  Knowing that I'll need to add gates and an exhaust port, I leave a little room.

I move them around until I get them where I want, which is so that the resin will flow through, but not have a lot of undercuts.

Taylor has joined in the fray and clay is going everywhere!

Since my buddy Rick sent me a lifetime supply of Q-Tips, I'm going to cut them and use the paper dowel as the runners for moving resin through the mold.  They are strong and cut easily.  The wood block up top will be where I pour in the resin, and it will flow through each of the cavities where the bags are.  Eventually it will push air, and finally resin, out the exhaust port on the right.

I built the mold half on plastic, so using some .040 spare plastic sheet, I cut out the forms for the mold.  Each is cut longer that the side to make it easier to pull off.

Using Ambroid Pro Weld and its handy oversized brush, I paint the cement on to the seams and make the dams water tight.

Here is how the mold looks vertically.  I'll pour the silicone mold compound into the top of this mold, and when cured, will flip the mold and remove the clay to make a second half.

The mold is coated in release powder and will be siliconed later tonight!