(01-24-2016, 10:01 AM)chrisjo Wrote:
These resin clones are solid, which is not practical for something as large as a Tomy Mainline Coach.
There are ways to get around this, for example when you pour your resin into your rubber mould, you can then displace most of the resin by pushing a block of balsa into it. You have to weight this down until the resin sets or it pops out again. You then dig the balsa out later.
But even if you do this pretty skilfully, leaving a reasonably thin shell of resin, you're still going to have to carve out the window openings.
Another approach would to be to de-construct a coach into five pieces; sides, ends and roof, and to make moulds for each of these separately, giving you kits of moulded pieces to re-assemble. This way you could mould and cast the sides thin enough to give you actual openings.
Resin and Silicone Rubber kits are not cheap, and last time I played with casting the smallest amounts you could get were still quite large. I've looked to see how much shipping a few coaches from UK to Israel would be, and to me, economically, it's a no-brainer.
But then if you fancy a challenge, why not??
Yes, that's the video. Thank you very, very much for all the detailed information and helpful tips. However, there's another problem in the way: I sort of forgot how it's set up inside, and I'll have to remove the wheels without having to cut one of them to get the axles out. I'll also need to use wheels and axles from other rolling stock for the duplicates. Before getting the materials for the moulding and casting, I'd first have to open up the coach to figure out how to get the axles out.