After reading through some older posts about casting fiberglass packs, a question came to mine. Assuming Exoray’s quote of about $1000 to make the first pack, what is the break even point for making fiberglass packs?
It seems that there are a lot of people interested in making a few for friends. Any thoughts on when it becomes cheaper to be casting than using other methods?
Vacforming is the cheapeast to do. (Although in reality scratch building is probably the cheapest.)
Fiberglass is cheap. I think if you wanted to do 3-4 packs doing your own in Fiberglass would be the best. Anything less than that and you are better off either scratch building or buying someone’s already done Fiberglass packs.
Even though it might only cost $1000-$1500 to make the mold, and do the casting.. your mold won’t last that long, and you will screw up a few times. There is a reason why I read somewhere last Halloween that Exoray spent almost $10,000 on silicone and resin.
Ouch.
**BIG **ouch :shock:
That’s a BIG twinkie.
Depends on how you do things. If you can build cheep and can make a mold properly as to conserve silicone then you might have a shot at breaking even pretty quickly. I didn’t break even on this run of proton gun stuff until a couple of sales ago, but I can see my mold is already showing wear so I will probably have to remold it once again pretty soon. Breaking even on what my time is worth, well, that will never happen.
Was it at least the most amazing pack ever? Or was that just a cumulative sum of all the silicon and resin he used for all projects?
Pretty sure that is a cumulative sum for his shells. I could be wrong.
$1000 seems like alot. Depending what you use to make the master positive, a one gallon unit of Rebound 25, which runs about $191 with shipping, will allow a really thick mold and then some. you WILL need to use a thickening agent though.
When I made my first molds I didnt use thickner and had some VERY weak spots where you could see light on the other side. Even then, with a really crappy mother shell I was able to pull 7 shells before it tore on me. My new mold should last much longer when IU start making some to sell.
It’s hard to predict how long a mold will last though. It all comes down to how it’s treated, how many undercuts it has and how severe they are, how much you flex it to pull stuff out, the nominal shore strength, etc.
I have Urethane RTV molds that have lasted dozens of pulls, and some that lasted 3 or 4.
Here’s one, what if you make it of wood, and not only glue it together, but find some way too nail it firmly together and cover over the nails or something with bondo? Would something like that make a mold more stable,?
Are you talking about making a mold out of wood, or making a mother mold out of wood? My mothermold is made out of wood… a wooden mold… don’t see that working out too well.
The master postitie (what you will make your molds from) can be anything. Mine are Balsa with a pie plate, pringles can, and a few other items added on. The mold will capture every detail of your positive, so you will want to make sure what you shape is what you want the final piece to look like.
Nails are not needed. Really a wood and glue pack would hold up pretty well. My Mark III wand had a 1/4" plywood body and held up really well. The only reason I like fiberglass is it is easier to make them hallow. so you can fit electronics and stuff inside.
I got close to 30 pulls from my first shell mold and it is still in good shape! I use the whole gallon kit of rebound 25. You want to make your mold strong to take all of the pulling you will do to get the shell out.