Plastic Injection Molding

So has anyone considered getting a plastic injection molding machine? Seems like it would be a cheaper long term solution to buying figures if you are a war gamer.

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youtube.com/watch?v=Fwd_CCPxNv0
youtube.com/watch?v=xLl8WjqDNFs
instructables.com/id/Home-Plastic-Injection-Molding-with-an-Epoxy-Mold/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Definitely thought about it. Melt down sprues, mold them into new minis, get easily double the value out of every box you buy.

Do you know how much fucking money an injection mold that could make even ONE figure would cost?

about as much as two space marine models by this time next year.

Unless you're planning on making your figures out of wax, an injection mold that could make ONE miniature at a time would likely cost thousands of dollars. Not including the plastic and the molds, the latter costing even MORE fucking money since they'd NEED to be made of metal. I'm pretty sure the one in OP's pic only makes golf tees.

So, the same cost as a battle box to get started. Got it.

And you'd only be able to mold really simple figures. like, the old 80's style space marines. So basically unless you were planning on making HUNDREDS of the same, single miniature, it'd be cheaper to just buy them normal. And let's not forget this is not counting the cost of materials, and your specific mold might not be able to fucking HANDLE good plastic

oyumaru casting >= pewter casting > 3d scan & printing > injection mold
(for domestic use)

>Cheaper to buy them normal
>Games Workshop
>Cheaper

I use a 3d printer. It's not perfect but it works reasonably well. With proper calibration, you can get some fairly detailed models.

Yes? I don't see how you can't understand the fact that buying something already made is cheaper than buying all the stuff to make it yourself. Not to mention if you'd want to make entire sprues, you'd frankly just need to go fuck yourself/sell your home

A small one is a several hundred. Definitely more expensive than one army, but also not cost prohibitive if you and your buddies can get your money's worth out of it. I've been looking up videos of people making molds from resin, which would be cheap.

dude you're arguing with a shitposter. He's just trying to troll and meme about gw prices. He knows you're right, he's just fucking with you. Stop feeding the troll.

Those ones would only be able to make really simple shapes like golf tees. Anything with an appreciable amount of detail would cost a lot more. Plus you gotta pay for molds.
Alternately you COULD try using resin injection molding. But you'd need to be retarded

Every last post I have made has been fucking with you, but I guess either you work for the GW marketing department or have crippling autism so you failed to catch on.

Recasting models on your own is entirely feasible, but injection molding is not the way to do it.

Perfect for playing 4-tee-k

For the curious, here's a look at how the tooling is made for injection moulded plastic kits. It's some pretty hefty stuff.

youtube.com/watch?v=Fwd_CCPxNv0
youtube.com/watch?v=xLl8WjqDNFs

>Seems like it would be a cheaper long term solution to buying figures if you are a war gamer.

Are you retarded? Holy shit never get a job that involves math.

>FUNDING A CAR ASSEMBLY PLANT AND BUILDING MY OWN CARS IS CHEAPER THAN HAVING TO BUY CARS ALL MY LIFE

With the current price of 3D printers, you basically get GM quality models for around 3K.

You definitely need to learn a lot about the craft and definitely spend the money on high quality plastic, but with a set of Jewelers files and a Dremel, you can clean up your minis well enough.

And once you get a hang of solid works or whatever derivative you choose, making custom models is piss easy compared to having to machine a new blank.

Ehh, because you don't need much build volume you could probably do as low as 1.5k, cheaper if you source the parts and build it yourself

I wrote up a big post talking about costs and the feasibility of injection moulding for a hobbyist, but that got tedious and I ended up deleting it.

Instead I'll give you the gist of it; it's financially viable if you want to produce ~150 or more sisters of battle (the exact number will depend on the opportunity cost of your labour) or if you want to produce 400-1000+ of anything else. Otherwise you won't even make back the cost of the mould. Please note that these won't be multipart, poseable figures either, but basic bolter bitches and the like. Furthermore, this doesn't consider the cost of the machine itself because that can vary wildly depending on whether you build it yourself or buy a proper hobby press.

So yeah, if you seriously want to do it I'd say go for it if you're a sisters player, you really wanted more than a hundred plastics sisters, and you can afford the investment. Otherwise just remind yourself that you don't need a full chapter of a single primaris marine pose.

Oops, it slipped my mind to mention the cost of plastic. In my original breakdown I'd neglected it because of some favourable assumptions, but here you should just add roughly 40 sisters of battle onto my estimate.

Well I was mostly looking to see if anyone had tried the method spelled out at

instructables.com/id/Home-Plastic-Injection-Molding-with-an-Epoxy-Mold/

I mean if you can get a cheap injection machine and the molds ends up cheap but lasting for enough casts to make it worth your while, it would open some doors as far as if you were collecting a large army of grunts.

I'd take that article with quite a few grains of salt since it was written by the same people who are trying to sell you the injection moulding machine used in it.