I'm convinced - I need to start casting my own resin items

This week I am art directing photoshoots at our photography studio, and one of my mates at the studio brought in some goodies to show me. And now I am convinced - I need to start casting my own duplicates with moulds and resin.

My mate Patto restores old motorcycles, and recently he needed to replace a worn old Bakelite item. I think it's a distributor cap or something (I don't know, engines are most definitely not my strong point...)  An original proved too hard/expensive to locate, and he had the brilliant idea of casting a replacement using the original that he had.

So he hit up a store called Barnes in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne, that specialises in casting supplies. I didn't even know it existed.

The products he used are as follows:
Easycast Polyurethane resin - link here
and
Pinkysil fast setting silicone - link here

For about 50 bucks he cast a replacement cap, bored it out and drilled a hole for a wire to go in, and now he is set.  The cast picked up every letter of the text moulded in the cap surface, and every little scratch and dent that it had picked up over the decades. It's 99.9% as good as the original.

And now I am convinced I need to get into this casting gig. It looks like a fun challenge, a new skill to learn, and an easy way to save time on jobs with fiddly scratchbuilding that needs repeating.

Thanks Patto. You're the best photo retoucher in the business! ;)

Cheers,

Dave

The silicone mould and the resin used for the cast reproduction.

Replacement cast on the left. Original cap on the right.

Pink silicone mould at top. Patto used an old takeaway container to pour the mould into.