The Sun Helmets (Topis) and the Lower Torsos (Legs and Kilts) on these Black Watch figures were Home Manufactured using the "Smash Casting" Process described below.

There are no graphics presently for Home Manufacturing. However, we're sure that there are some brave souls who will plunge right in and try their hand at making their own accessories and figures. We admire their courage and wish them luck.

The Plastic Material:

We have used Alumilite for several years with great success. Unlike epoxy resins, it doesn't have an obnoxious odor nor does it just keep on curing and curing and curing. We are old metal gravity casters and have always been able to get exactly what we wanted, ranging in size from 15mm to 90mm, by using lead/tin alloys and rtv molds. When we decided to try plastic, we didn't have any idea what we were doing. We tried everything until we found Alumilite. (We can't even remember how we actually stumbled on to it, but we know that it was quite a few years ago.) Alumilite of course is nothing at all like molten metal. You can't throw your waste, or your mistakes, back into the pot. And, regardless of what they tell you, it does NOT pour like metal. The darn stuff is like molasses and sets up too quickly to be poured into a mold. Now for the good part. When you pour molten metal into a mold you have to have a sprue and air vents. Learning how to design and create the proper sprue and vents is critical to successfully casting metal. Not so with Alumilite. The best technique that we've found is "Smash Casting."

Smash Casting:

With Smash Casting there is no sprue nor are there any vents. We use RTV and make two halves, but not exactly as we would for a "pour casting" mold. The only trick here is to indent your impression deeper on one half and raise your impression on the other half so that you can slightly overflow the indented half with the Alumilite. By doing this you are able to fully fill your mold cavity thus avoiding any voids in your finished casting. If you just smashed two "normal" halves together you would trap air between the two. Your mold must be recessed or "indented" on one side and "raised" on the other so you can slightly overflow your indented half thus avoiding trapped air. As you can imagine, trapped air will produce all kinds of voids and air bubbles and other little "nasties" which will ruin your finished casting. You put the two halves of the molds together after you pour the Alumilite into the two open sides. The process of casting one sided molds has been around for a long time. "Smash Casting" is just the next step in using this process to produce a fully round casting in just one step. Alumilite is available from:

http://www.alumilite.com/

Now to answer the most asked question, "Will this process work for little accessory pieces as well as large Playmobil figures?" YES, regardless of the size, all come out great. You will be amazed at the detail. You will also be amazed at how easy it is and how little waste and cleaning you will have with a little practice. Let us know how you do and if you have any more questions as you get into it.