Turret Casting?

Hey mates,
I've created a two new molds for early QE turrets, one with ladders, one without. I'm looking for a durable, semi flexible material to cast them out of as the sighting hoods and the tops of the ladders will get shot off if made from anything even slightly brittle. I also need something water-thin or close in order to get the ladder details and tops which are very fine.
I've been directed to the Smooth On site, but can't decide from among their products. Any direction or tips? Thanks in advance!

 

Another source is Micro-Mark. I'm going to bet that bits will be shot off any way. You should worry about making it cheap and easy to replace them! Another thought is to cast them in RTV. That way they would just bend then return to their original shape.

 

One thing I'm starting to experiment with is making fiberglass turrets for my Viribus Unitis. I'm not going for anything high-detail (I'll glue on resin-cast details later), so I just need the basic shape of the turret, but the fiberglass is strong and thin. I'll probably add in some buoyant material later, if there's a chance the turret itself may get shot off. Wouldn't want to lose all that hard work to Davey Jones, would I?

Just another possibility to consider.

 

FreemanSupply.com You might want to check this place out
Ron H

 

I'm looking for something similar to the termite armor material. My fiberglass turrets really are bullet proof and in 8 years of battling, I've only lost one (it never had floatation installed). And you know what, I purchased a replacement.

But for Warspite, with its sighting hoods and ladder tops, the material needs to have more give. I'm surprised this has been so difficult to determine. Usually folks in this hobby are eager to share information. Are people afraid that others will pirate their turret designs? The cost of materials makes that silly. You can already get a better turret than you can make for under $10 bucks - the cost of buying one to copy, then making your own molds, and casting it yourself, and buying two different kinds of material that will both go bad on your shelf in under a year - is prohibitive. Plus, the clubs (at least MWC) have already demonstrated their intolerance for piracy. One was put permanently out of business for his thievery.

But nobody makes the turrets I need, and nobody plans on making them for the time period I need, so I have to incur all of the costs myself. I'm currently discussing this with the good folks at Smooth-On and when I have an answer I will share it with everyone. I don't see why this is such a well-guarded secret. The intellectual property is the turret and its mold, not the commercially available resin.

 

I've been casting spare VDT turrets out of Smooth Cast 305(I bought a bunch of it for casting my parents christmas gift so now im casting whatever to use it up) but it is not flexiable and I dont know if its bb proof or not. Not that I really care a whole lot since I can just cast new ones when they get to beat up, I think BC uses smooth-cast too but im not 100% sure. As for how well it picks up detail you can see the wood grain from the master in the cast turrets. I think the termite armor is one of the smooth-on foams, maybe if you asked one of the guys making them they would tell you. I don't think its a secret as much as not many people do it and a lot of the people that do aren't on these forums.

 

Give Pete D, or Brain K a holler on the MWC region 3 list. They run Greywolf, and you know they will share info with you, but they are not on this list as far as I know.

 

Unobtanium.

 

There is a guy in my club who does most of the club's casting. We just make the blanks, or give him the plans, and he casts a bunch of beautiful, high-detail parts. I don't know what stuff he uses, but it tends to get blown off whole, rather than shattering or other unpleasantness. I have actually retrieved a number of blown-off lifeboats from the bottom of the pond while wreck-diving, and used them on my own ship after re-painting. I think he's on the Yahoo Big Gun group. Ask for George from the WWCC.

 

Ty,

Give me a call, you can send me the masters and I will make your copies. I am getting ready to cast a bunch of my own and you can just share the cost. I am using lightweight foam (15 pound density), termite type molding material, and super hard plastic.
I use this local guy: http://www.theengineerguy.com/

 

Check out the cleveland build for what I used in props and casting them.

 

Have you considered using a wooden plug that has a laytex rubber coating, you paint the
laytex into your mold, make a second layer when dry start a 3rd layer and add some medical
type gause then paint the 4th layer over this, then before this drys put in your wooden plug or
inner form (balsa or bass wood) the rubber makes BBs bounce off, and the wood and laytex
is easy to cut and work with. Just a idea (you can add grey color to laytex or paint it but the
paint will chip when shot at.lain:

 

Here is a little Idea to keep turrets on"
Take the pin out of your gun barrel and put it in a small pin coming
through the turret with a hole in it, keeps the pin out of the way and
near the barrel and keeps the turret pinned on at battle time and
makes it free when not battling.

Just a thought...

 

Great ideas mates! I actually ended up finding a product on my own that I prefer to the Termite material. Smoothcast 45D. It has the advantage of being tintable. I'll let you all know how it holds up to Nats in July.

 

Hi Jacky,
I have been using Alumilite products. Look in their website under resins. the Flex products are what you want. I would suggest Flex 60 or 70. I make the inner mold such that the turret comes out at 1/8 to 3/16 inch thick. Don/t think you will take damage with this stuff.

 

It held up great. Still going strong 4 years and 100+ battles later!