I took a few pics to show how to make easy one-piece silicone molds.
With some practise, such molds make PERFECT copies, not to be distinguished from the original. No visible loss of detail, even for very detailed parts.
The technique is both useful for scratchbuilding vehicles, figures and kits, for copying them or for making diorama items (e.g. Cobblestone or concrete, paving, monuments, gateposts, ornamentel stonecarving, etc...
Here's the making of a simple mold to copy a few of my ammo boxes on 1/15. If you want to make a pallet of ammo crates, there's no need to make all boxes individually. You make one, copy it. If you don't like the hassle of pooring resin all the time, make several at once.
I ALWAYS have a mold of ammo boxes sitting on my workbench when I work with resin.
Whenever I use resin to cast something, I poor the rest into the ammo boxes mold. By the end of the year, you have dozens of ammo crates made with leftover liquid resin you would have thrown away anyway.
Hardened pieces of resin, miscast stuff, etc... I break into pieces (with pliers) and use those as filler. Thus you use not so much liquid resin for the same result.
To start making a mold, select a container. In this case, I use a small plastic drawer of my bits and pieces box. Make sure you have about a centimeter around the original at all sizes. Thin walls can break your mold, thicker walls are more difficult to de-mold and are just a wast of expensive silicone. To make it fit snugly, I often make tailor-made containers with styrene (make sure there's no seems or holes, they need to be water-tight !) or with lego.
Don't just place the originals in the box. When you start pooring silicone, your original may start floating, thus ruining the mold - and sometimes ruining the original.
Therefore make sure you stick the orgininal to the bottom. Mostly, I cut a piece of styrene to size and place the original(s) on that.
Before you start mixing silicone, make sure you are well prepared. Cleaning tissue, rubber gloves are useful if you want to keep your hands safe, your working surface clean and your marriage together. To make a perfect mix, a scale is useful (though I admit I used guesswork in the past, and that worked well, too. Only when you use guesswork you always end up with a leftover of one of both (expensive) silicone components.
You also need a disposable container to mix the silicone and something to stir with. Those plastic thingies that fast-food restaurants offer to stir the coffee work fine.
(in the background you see a LOT of the ammo boxes I discussed above. They are easy to cast and always are useful for dioramas, filling the truckload, etc... Notice that several of them are colored when I used a dye to color the resin.
A good kitchen scale comes in handy. I explained to the missus that this is indespensible to bake cookies. I admit I used it to bake cookies indeed. Twice already. Maybe I should bake some next weekend to convince her that I didn't just buy it for modeling purposes
The screwdriver next to the scales is an interesting tool. It has a very broad rim, and can be used as a mini-crowbar. I use it to remove lids from paint jars, silicone pots, etc... Very handy !
