Casting

The tools of the trade...

It's time to report in and let you know how I've been going. After a couple of false starts, I've gotten to the point of being able to cast some gun barrels. Earlier I'd gotten over ambitious and made a giant mould that included many elements. That was OK rto a point, except that when i was making it, I used baby oil as a seperation agent for the two halves of the mould. I foolishly did not realise that the warm weather had further reduced the already low-viscosity oil to the point that when i made the second pour of rubber compound, it was pushed aside by the dense, heavy, viscous liquid rubber.

Result?

One solid block of rubber with my master locked inside and ten savage minutes with a stanley knife to extract them.

Lesson learned - don't overreach when you don't know what you are doing! Use vaseline as a seperation medium!

I'm moulding the gun wheels and carriage at the moment and will do the slide over the next day and a half. More repotys as we go on.