I mentioned this a while back, but, because it produces such excellent results, I'd recommend you consider the Dow Corning Silastic moldmaking materials. You can take almost any plastic part, glue it together if it's broken, sand off the seam, and then, using whatever polyester (figerglass) or acrylic (e.g. clear-cast) room temperature curing casting plastic, reproduce it in the Silastic mold with GREAT precision. It will even pick up the finish on the surfaces. If you carefully prepare the model prior to making the mold, the resulting product, almost from the "git-go" will be a perfect replica of the original. This helps if the original is the wrong color, material, shape (you can modify the original), or whatever else you want to change.
Check the Dow Corning web site for materials guidance.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Jay West
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 9:28 PM
Subject: Just curious about injection molding or casting
Don't recall this ever coming up before. I don't need to do it with anything now, but might in the future so thought I'd solicit any ideas from the listmembers.
For small plastic parts, say - switches and actuators and the like - that get broken or are missing from systems or peripherals. Is it within the realm of the home hobbiest to forge duplicate parts? For example - a switch on a DEC PC04 where you have 3 switches but are missing one. Can it easily be done to make a casting of the part in some kind of clay, then work with dyes to get the color right and pour in a plastic or resin and thus create another identical switch?
I'm sure there's a lot of side issues that come up. Some parts need to be hard, some ever so slightly flexible. Others need to be a solid material, and still others would need to be somewhat opaque to let light shine through. I'm thinking of like front panel switches or light covers.
Anyone ever try this route or is it silly to even attempt non-professionally?
Jay West
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Received on Sun Aug 26 2001 - 19:47:33 BST