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If you want to make more than one unit of any given prop replica, it is inevitable to make molds of all the parts you need. This way you’ll be able to make multiple resin casts of each piece. For the Neutrino Probe, this presented a few unique challenges I had to tackle along the way due to the special nature of the body, its prototype parts and the fact that I wanted to put electronics in there. In this blog post I’ll show you exactly what I thought would work, what did’t work and – most importantly – what I ended up doing. [More…]

Clay is used to embed the master model during the creation of a two part silicone rubber mold. This way you can do one half first and then the other. You have to use a non-reactive clay to avoid inhibiting the chemical reaction of the two silicone rubber components. To ensure that, your clay musn’t contain any sulfates and needs to be oil-based. When not in use, the cleay should be stored dust-free in an airtight glass vessel. [More…]

In this second installment of my ODN Scanner progress report I will describe how the finished master model (see Part I) is used to fabricate a silicone rubber mold which then can be used to cast resin kit parts.

Because the finished prop was supposed to contain an electric circuit with a super bright red LED and five green sequencing lights, the mold had to be done in a way so that the [More…]