Garden Railway Forum

Due to the fact I have built a number of coaches recently, I am now at the stage of making some air vents for the roof.

I was going to machine them up, but without a CNC lathe this would take quite a while to knock out around 30 vents all looking pretty much the same.

I have decided to go for making one, and then trying for modelling rubber to make a mould around it and then use plaster of paris to just knock them out as many as I want.

Wish me luck as I have never tried anything like this before, lol

if it works I will do the same for the door handles

Pictures to come if successful, lol

-steves-:113050 wrote:
I have decided to go for making one, and then trying for modelling rubber to make a mould around it and then use plaster of paris to just knock them out as many as I want.

I'm far from an expert but there was a thread on moulding some while back, which inspired me to have a reasonablty successful first go at moulding.
http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/ftopic8248-30.php

I would suggest you DON'T use Plaster of Paris, it's too fragile, but car body filler works well.

Once you start using resin (which is quite easy) you will soon find other items you can mould yourself.

Plaster of paris is OK for casting buildings, but close to useless for detail parts.

Depending on the type of vent you might be better of casting them in whitemetal. some types can be done in resin, but something like torpedo vents are much easier to do in metal.

Same applies to door handles. I machine mine from brass for strength, but whitemetal would be OK, although a bit easier to bend. I wouldn't even attempt them in resin, too brittle.

Refer to this thread that just started for some links on whitemetal casting.

http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about9957.html

Regards,
Graeme

The suppliers of resin kits do door handles in brass, so that tells you how unsuited resin is.