Driver figure mold

[Ferruz 11702]

After buying and receiving yet another driver figure for my buggy cars, I started thinking: what about trying to make a good old mold of the torso and helmet/face sections, in order to be able to do them myself? They look like realtively easy items ro reproduce, although I've never tried anything like it before, and I don't have a 3D printer. 

I'm pretty sure somebody posted some pics of their work in the matter on the forum not long ago, but I can't remember where and wasn't able to find it.

So, before I start... did anybody engage in this, and with which results? What materials did you use?

Thanks in advance for any input! I'm curious to see what you come up with.

[Mokei Kagaku 2706]

12 hours ago, Ferruz said:

After buying and receiving yet another driver figure for my buggy cars, I started thinking: what about trying to make a good old mold of the torso and helmet/face sections, in order to be able to do them myself? They look like realtively easy items ro reproduce, although I've never tried anything like it before, and I don't have a 3D printer. 

I'm pretty sure somebody posted some pics of their work in the matter on the forum not long ago, but I can't remember where and wasn't able to find it.

So, before I start... did anybody engage in this, and with which results? What materials did you use?

Thanks in advance for any input! I'm curious to see what you come up with.

I made RTV-molds for the XR311/Cheetah driver, Rough Rider/Super Champ driver, Porsche 959 heads, Sand Scorcher nose cone and several others before Tamiya started with re-releases. Molding copies in resin from RTV-molds is relatively easy, but the problem is cost. Even when buying RTV-silicone and resin in larger than normal hobby-quantities, the resulting cost of each copy isn't that much lower than the original parts. And the RTV-molds don't last forever. So, in theory, making copies can quite often seem to be a way of saving money, but in reality very little, if anything, can be saved.

So, now that many of the old parts have again become available, I only make resin copies of parts that can't be bought new. It's a quite fun activity though!

[Ferruz 11702]

@Mokei Kagaku Thank you for your detailed explanation. Better forget about it altogether then, and be thankful that we live in the re-release days. But I'm sure it's fun to try!

[No Slack 454]

3D printing is the way forward. A friend used to have a 3D printing company and he operated a few scan machines in shopping malls for the public to buy their own face on a bobble head. The prints were made of paper with added binder and colour. This was an easy process. I had some ideas for figures (like modern rally drivers heads with open helmets). Sadly he sold the company so I can't experiment anymore (scale is an issue). To give you an impression how it works see here https://www.thebobbleshop.nl/huur-een-bobbleshop/ In this case you can use the heads for RC-car interiors. Full scans are aso possible. The process is a little expensive at the moment but prices drop.