How to cast your own

Plastic and Rubber Parts Written by David Church

Edited by Allen Pierce and Cody Mingus

The purpose of this pdf tutorial is to help get you started producing accurate, durable, rubber
and plastic parts for your own restorations. I’ve done my best to keep this simple so that anyone...
(yes, even you), will be able to cast plastic and rubber parts.

The professionals do it by injecting their rubber mixture into precision-milled, steel molds and
subjecting the mold to enormous pressure and heat.

Most of us garage mechanics can’t duplicate that.

However, what we can do works very well. Just takes a little patience on your part. There are
several ways to create molds. However, I will focus on making and using flexible, RTV silicon molds
and using casting polyurethanes. Both the silicone and the urethane come in two-part “kits” that
react with each other when combined and harden without the need of heat or pressure. Silicone is
tough, flexible, picks up amazing detail, and is an all around excellent material for creating molds.
Polyurethane is durable, resistant to sun and chemical exposure, and is ideal for casting small
plastic parts.

There are different hardnesses for different applications. The hardness factor of the polyurethane
rubber you use is indicated by it’s “shore hardness”. For instance, a shore hardness of 40 is more
supple than a shore hardness of 60 or 80. I use a two-part polyurethane rubber with a shore
hardness of 80 for my replacement motorcycle rubber parts.

For hard plastic parts, I use a product called “HardCast” from Silpak. HardCast is a two part
polyurethane plastic. Different from the rubber. I like HardCast because even though it is a hard
plastic, it has a slight flexibility to it that allows the cast part to absorb impact without shattering.
Much of the hard plastic produced before the late was and still is very brittle and often shatters
under impact.

Urethane plastic is neat stuff. You can make it hard as rock, or soft as silly putty. You can mix
in additives to make it take on the appearance of other elements like wood, ice or metal. I was
standing in the Silpak show room one day waiting for my order when one of the sales guys
there handed me what I had thought was a chromed automotive door handle. Turns out it was
just Hardcast mixed with a metal filler they sell there. All you have to do is buff the de-molded
piece till it shines like real chrome!
Cool man. I’d held the piece in my hand and
had been completely fooled. They also had
“brass” coins and other “metal” samples that
would’ve convinced anyone that they were
made of pure metal.
A Few Notes on Terminology

PATTERN is the original item you wish to reproduce.

MOLD is the “negative” of your part that you create with another material. And it will be what you
pour your casting material into to form your cast. A mold can be made from latex, plaster, pounded
sand, silicone, clay, expanding foam, Bondo, wax... basically, anything that will retain a negative
of your pattern can serve as a mold. Have you ever used a plastic bucket to make a sand castle?

CAST is the hardened piece you remove from the mold sections.

DE-MOLD is a short way of describing the act of removing your cast from a mold.

FLASH is the excess material that you find surrounding your cast when you de-mold the cast.
It’s a result of the casting material seeping out around your cast and in between the mold halves.
The flash must be trimmed off.

DE-GAS is removing air from a poured mixture.... Usually through the use of a vacuum chamber.

RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanization) means that your two part silicone or urethane will harden
and cure without the need for high pressure or heat. Nice for us garage-monkeys.

URETHANE is actually a synthetic plastic that can be made to have rubber-like qualities.

RUBBER is a natural product, taken from trees. It is NOT a plastic and is therefore prone to decay.
Most “rubber” you will see today is actually not rubber but a synthetic imitation... like urethane
or neoprene.

SILICONE or RTV silicon is a synthetic, material with flexible, rubber-like qualities. It has excellent
detail retention or memory, making it an ideal for creating molds. It comes in two parts that must
be mixed together.

BASE is the inert “building block” part of a two part material. It reacts with the catalyst to cure
into the desired end-product like flexible silicone, or epoxy resin, or polyurethane, or Bondo.

CATALYST is the second part of a two-part material that activates the base material, causing a
reaction that forces the two parts to transform into the desired end-product. You usually only need
to add a small amount of catalyst to the base to get the reaction you need.

MIXING RATIO is the direction of how much of the catalyst you mix into the base of your two-
part mixture. For instance “10 to 1” would be 10 parts of “base” to 1 part of “catalyst”. It’s best to
measure out the parts by weight, and not by volume.

CURE is the time needed for the mixed and poured material to fully exhale all solvents from itself
and fully harden. For instance, an hour after pouring a silicone mold it may be dry to the touch,
but it will still need another 8 hours to cure.
Here’s a list of things you’ll need:
• A gram weigh scale. (I bought a digital kitchen-scale
off ebay for 9 bucks)
• A heat lamp. (I use a 100 wt bulb in my swiveling,
desk-lamp.)
• A vacuum chamber. (This is to “de-gas” the molds...
or, in other words, “suck out the bubbles”. And I’ll
show you how to make one for less then $50.00)
• Sulfur-free, plasticine clay and sculpting tools.
• Small paper cups. Do NOT get the wax coated cups.
• Flexible, plastic mixing cups. You can get them from
your plastics supplier. Sometimes the supplier will
toss a couple into your order for free.
These are the tools I use the most. The sulfur-free,
• A bottle of alcohol, some Q-tips, and a roll plasticine clay is an absolutely essential tool.
of paper towels.
• Popsicle sticks, bamboo skewer sticks (I like to cut
them in half), and toothpicks.
• A small pair of scissors and a large toe-nail clipper.
• Tweezers
• Various sizes of rubber bands
• Silicone RTV rubber & catalyst (to make your molds)
•Two-part, RTV polyurethane rubber or two-part
urethane plastic kit. (To cast your parts) On the back of my work bench is my home-built
vacuum chamber. The compressor was salvaged
from an abandoned refrigerator.
Feel free to call the plastic distributors and tell them what
you plan to do. You’ll be surprised how helpful they can be.
They’ll be able to explain to you what you need to buy and
how to use it properly. Don’t forget to buy some colored
dye. I mostly use black, red, and white.
It’s expensive to make a master-mold. And, although most
companies will be happy to sell you what you need in
smaller quantities like pint and quart kits, some companies
are only interested in selling the materials you need in
industrial quantities. So, shop around a little before you buy.
You can expect to get from 50 to 150 casts out of a silicone
master mold before it wears out. My digital, kitchen gram scale and the paper
Dixie cups and flexible, plastic mixing cups.

An example of some of the patterns I’ve made in
the past. Any material will work.
A pattern and the final cast piece in black urethane.
The pouring basin and risers will be removed with
a sharp, toe-nail clipper.
Every overhang or ceiling surface must have a riser
or at least an air bubble “catch area” to collect
and trap air bubbles away from the cast part.
Here is the first half of a mold, ready to receive
the poured silicone for the second half. I glued
plastic-rod together to make the risers. Check out
the pouring basin shaped in clay.
1. Create A Pattern Of The Part You Want To Recreate
Take your original and clean it up, fill all cracks with the clay and
smooth them out with your fingers. If your original is too damaged
to use as pattern, shape a new one to match the dimensions of the
part you want to re-create. Take careful measurements of your
original part.
It doesn’t matter what material you use to create your pattern, as
long as it will hold it’s own shape. I’ve used wood, plastic, clay,
Bondo, carved blocks of wax, and metal to make my own patterns.
Make sure that you’ve removed all scratches from your pattern,
as the silicone WILL pick them up. I have a couple of molds that
faithfully reproduce the swirled sandpaper scratch marks I failed
to remove from the surface of the patterns.
2. Add Risers And A Pouring Basin To The Pattern
You must get used to thinking of your pattern as a “pattern-shaped”
empty space. You will be filling that empty space with your
polyurethane mixture.... And air bubbles…
No matter how hard you try to keep air out, there are always
bubbles lurking in your mixture. As your poured mold sits, those
air bubbles will float up through the polyurethane until they are
trapped by an overhanging or ceiling surface. There they will stay
as your mixture cures, leaving nice big holes in your cast part for
you to find once you’ve de-molded the part. Thus, we need to
provide an escape-route for those evil air bubbles to exit the mold.
You do that by attaching shaped pieces of clay, bits of plastic rod,
bits of wooden dowels, or pieces of malleable tin solder to the
top-surfaces of your pattern. Consider every spot that looks like it
might trap bubbles. I like to attach small balls of clay to the
upwards facing surfaces and press a length of plastic rod into
the clay. Pieces of tin solder can be bent to match curved surfaces.
Attach them with just a touch of super glue. Once your silicon
mold is cured, remove the clay and the rod from the mold.
These bubble “escape-ways” are called “risers”.
You will also need to create a funnel-shaped hole for pouring the
casting material. This is called the “pouring basin”. The easiest way
to do that is to cut it out of the silicone once the mold has cured.
However, I usually create the pouring basin in the clay surrounding
the pattern when I’m preparing the bottom half of the mold.
This allows me to control the shape of the pouring basin to suite my
needs. The bottom half of the mold is called the “drag”, and the top
half of the mold is known as the “cope”.
3. Build the Box
You can build a box using strips of card stock or pieces
of wood, or you can use any container as the boundaries
for your new mold. Just be aware that you’ll need to remove
Lego Blocks really help speed up the building pro-
it once the mold cures. Dixie cups, toilet paper tubes, small cess. You can take down the walls and build them
cardboard boxes, strips of cardboard taped together, and back up as often as you need as you work.
slats of wood or sheet plastic all work well.

Lately, I’ve been using Lego Blocks to build my containers

because they allow me to quickly lay out a box in any
shape and size I need. When the mold is completed, I just
toss the Lego blocks back into a plastic bag to be used
again. If you decide to use Lego Blocks, be sure to smear
a bit of clay into the seams so that the poured silicon
doesn’t leak through.

4. Place the pattern into the clay bed

Lay a layer of clay on the floor of the box or “drag”. This layer Pick your parting line and make it tight and clean.
of clay will temporarily represent the opposite side of your
mold. Try to get the clay as smooth and level as possible.
Gently press the pattern halfway into the clay so that the
side with the risers and pouring basin are facing up.

Take some time to ensure that the clay meets your pattern
cleanly. Use a tool of some sort to run along the edge
where the clay meets the pattern to make a nice, sharp,
clean edge. Don’t allow any gaps or ripples in the clay
where it meets the pattern. In my opinion, this is the MOST
IMPORTANT STEP in making your mold. Take the time to
look at the edges, and the shape of the clay where it meets See what happens when you don’t take the time
the part. This will be your mold parting line so keep it clean to get that clay bed tight and clean against the
pattern? Now I have to cut off all that flash.
and precise! If you are patient and careful here, you’ll have
a clean edge that won’t leak.

5. Create “keys” in the clay

Use some sort of tool to press shaped indentions into the
clay around the pattern. These holes will be the “keys” that
lock the mold haves together, providing a near perfect
alignment of the mold halves every time you put them
together. If you forget to make the keys and have already
poured the silicone, don’t panic. You can cut notches into
the silicone of the first mold half once it has cured.
Then pour the other side of the mold. Those notches will I like to use the knurled end of an X-Acto knife to
act as your keys. press my keys in the clay bed.

Don’t have a vacuum chamber? You need one.
I’ll show you how to build one for cheap. Or you
can shell out the $$ for a professional unit.
A thin stream helps break up any bubbles still
trapped in the mixture.
Any clay left stuck to your pattern will become a
permanent part of your master mold.
Your mold halves should look similar to above.
Did you remember to add the pouring basin and
the keys? Store the completed molds in plastic bags.
6. Mix, de-gas and pour the silicone mold material
Combine the silicone base and the colored catalyst together
till you get a solid color without ANY white streaks of unmixed
material visible. The catalyst is usually either blue or red in color.
This means, your mixture should have an even, pastel pink
color or sky blue color. After mixing the silicon, pour it into
another, clean cup to keep any unmixed material that’s still
clinging to the sides of your original mix-cup from re-introducing
itself into your carefully blended material. Place that cup into
the vacuum chamber to remove as many bubbles as possible.
This is called “degassing the mixture”. Wait till the vacuum
gauge hits 29 Hgs. Then let the chamber do it’s thing for 3
minutes or so, or until you can’t see any more large bubbles
bursting. You won’t be able to remove all the bubbles in the
vacuum chamber, but you will be able to remove enough air
to suit your needs.
Pour the de-gassed mixture in a thin stream, (so as to break up
any bubbles that might still be in the mixture), into the lowest
areas of your mold and let the mixture slowly spread out on
it’s own. This allows the mixture to gradually snuggle up to the
pattern, allowing any air to escape. Tap the container and agitate
it gently to help encourage any trapped air bubbles to rise to the
surface. Set the mold aside to cure for at least 8 to 10 hours.
7. Prepare and pour the second half of the mold
Flip the mold-box over and remove the base. Remove the clay
from the mold. Clean ALL the clay off the pattern and the
silicone mold half. An alcohol-soaked Q-tip works well for this.
It dissolves the clay and doesn’t harm the silicone mold.
Spray the mold with mold-release spray so that the first half
of the mold will not stick to the second half of the mold you
are about to pour. You can use Vaseline as a substitute.
Mix the silicone, de-gas it, and pour the second half of the
mold. Just as you did for the first half. Set it aside to cure.
8. Separate the mold halves and prepare it for casting
After the second-half of the mold is cured, remove the walls of
the box and gently pry the halves apart. Go slow. Remove the
master pattern and store it somewhere safe for future use.
Clean the mold halves of any debris and or flash. Keep your
master mold clean and it will last you a good while. You can
expect anywhere from 50 to 100 casts out of your mold.
Casting With Rubber and Plastic

1. Prepare the mold for pouring

Make sure that the mold halves are clean and free of debris.
Also check that the risers are clear. If you are using a
mold made from a non flexible material like wood, metal
or plaster, you must spray it with mold release. Forget to You don’t have to use flexible RTV Silicone for
your master molds. This wood mold is what I use
do this and the casting urethane might decide to become to pour motorcycle speedometer gaskets.
a permanent part of your mold.

2. Mix, de-gas, and pour the rubber or plastic

into the mold
If you’re pouring rubber, use a flexible, plastic mixing cup.
You will be able to remove the dried remains of the mixture
later and re-use the cup. If you are pouring a hard plastic.
Use UNWAXED disposable paper cups.

RTV rubbers and plastics are designed for simplicity of use.

However, you MUST mix the separate parts as per the Let gravity do your work as much as possible.
product directions. The most effective way to do this is by Pour as a thin stream to break up any bubbles.
weight. For instance, if the directions call for a 1-to-1 pour
ratio of a two-part polyurethane, and you needed 20 grams
of material, you’d pour 10 grams of each part. I use a
kitchen scale that I got off ebay for nine bucks.

So how do you figure out how much of your expensive

material to pour? Well, I’ve tried other, more scientific
methods... but, I find it simpler and faster to just “eyeball”
it. In time, you too will develop an uncanny ability to
determine volume from a single glance at the mold.
Leave the mixing stick in the leftover RTV rubber
Using a wooden popsicle stick, make sure that the mixture and set the cup aside till the mixture dries…
is thoroughly blended. Scrape the sides and corners very
well. I suggest that you then pour the mix into a new cup
before you de-gas to avoid leaving any unmixed residues
in the material.

Polyurethane rubber is thick and viscous, which means it

doesn’t want to release any trapped bubbles. Use a tooth
pick or one of the sharp-ended bamboo skewers to apply
the rubber into the areas you feel might have difficulty
getting it’s share. I often find it easier to pour some of the
polyurethane into the cavities of the separate mold halves
Once the rubber has dried, you can use the stirring
before I close them together. stick as a handle to remove the excess material
from the cup. Alcohol will clean up the rest.

Ill-fitting mold will create lots of clean up work
for you. In this case, I just forgot the rubber bands.
Be careful as you pull out the new casts...
The silicon mold can tear with rough handling.
One of the advantages to using silicone as a mold
material is that it allows you to “flex” it away from
the cast part
Use rubber bands to keep the mold halves snuggled
together.
Be careful that you don’t deform the shape of the mold with
the rubber bands that are TOO tight. Tap the mold against
your workbench top a few times to agitate the material and
release any bubbles.
If you’re pouring rigid plastic like the “hardcast” I like to use,
you only have about 60 to 90 seconds before the plastic
begins to set. So be quick. I usually pour the two parts into
little paper Dixie cups. Add the dye, and stir it all together.
Now quickly pour the mixture into the mold you have prepared
for the plastic. What?!? You forgot to get your mold ready?
You’re screwed then. By the time you get the mold halves
together and rubber banded tight... the plastic will have
hardened in the Dixie cup. Toss it and mix another cupful.
The nice thing about the plastic is that it has a low viscosity.
Like chocolate milk. So it will run into and fill all kinds of tiny
places that the rubber could never fill on it’s own. The plastic
is much easier to pour. You just have to be quick is all.
Don’t forget to add the color dye. The accepted rule-of-thumb
for adding the dye is 2% of the volume of the mixture.
Too much dye can weaken your cast and even keep it from
hardening properly. This applies to both the rubber and the
plastic urethanes.
3. De-mold the newly cast part
After the mold has set, (at least 8-10 hours for the RTV rubber,
but only 30 minutes or so for the hardcast plastic), carefully
separate the mold halves and remove the cast. If the cast is
in great shape with no bubble holes, clip off the risers and
pouring basin excess and set the cast aside to cure in the
open air for a day or so. Are there bubble holes? Darn... don’t
panic yet, you still might be able to save the cast.
4. Repairing bubble holes in polyurethane rubber
and plastic casts
So, you’ve got a rubber piece with a gaping hole in it huh?
Or a few holes left by the air bubbles that were trapped
You can see the gapping holes left by air pockets.
in the mold? Just set those flawed pieces aside till next I was later able to repair and use this cast using
time you pour; then use a tooth pick to dab some of the the scotch tape method.
left over mixture into the bubble holes of your part. You can
even repair large holes that go completely through the cast
by sticking a piece of scotch-tape to the back of one side
of the hole. The tape will act as an air-tight wall for you to
pack in the new rubber from the other side. Once dry, the
scotch tape will peel right off the back. Leaving a smooth,
nearly seamless repair. Tiny little pin holes are nearly
impossible to fill due to the laws of capillary action or
something like that. I would either live with the pin holes,
or toss the part and pour another.
A pair of sharp Toe-nail clippers and the scissors
Plastic casts are easy to repair. Just add some new from a small swiss army knife are two of my most
mixture into the holes with a toothpick and let dry. File or useful tools.
sand smooth. You can buff the repair areas with a cloth
wheel and compound to bring back that “new plastic shine”.
Messed up? No biggie. Just add some more mixture, let
it harden, and file it down again.

5. Multiple-part molds and molds with cores

Some of the patterns you want to reproduce will be too
complicated for the one or two-part molds. A multiple-part
mold will allow you to work your way around a complicated
pattern. However, it’s most likely that you’ll never need to
create a master-mold with more than three parts. A single-part or open-faced mold, the pattern
(white), and the cast part (black).
A three-part mold is created in the same way as a normal,
two-part mold. Excepting of course, that you’ll have to
PLAN where the parting line for the mold parts will be on
your pattern. Decide where you want the lines of the first
part to lay along the surface of your pattern and build the
clay-bed box... place the pattern into the bed of clay and
then build up a wall of clay along the area where the third
mold part will be. Take a look at the pictures I’ve included
and you’ll begin to see what I’m talking about.

A simple two-part mold.


This is a more complicated three-part mold for a
motorcycle kill-switch. The first two mold parts
hold the brass “core” & provide the detail for the
underside of the pattern. The third mold part
creates the top of the pattern.
This three-part mold for a motorcycle light-switch
lever is all about holding the metal core in place
while the plastic end is being cast onto the end.
You can see that the two larger mold parts do
little more than hold the core. The smaller, third
mold part is where the plastic is poured.
This two-part mold required some careful planning.
I wanted to create a mold without having to
include a third part for the core. In retrospect,
I wish I had created the core as a third part. As it
is now, I have to carefully work the newly cast air box
boot away from the surface tension of both the
core AND the sides of the mold to release the cast.
It might help you to wrap your mind around the idea of how to
create a three-part mold by imagining the pattern as though
it were embedded within a brick of clay. Can you picture that?
Rotate the block of clay around in your mind and decide how
you would divide the brick into thirds. Then, in your mind’s eye,
you would remove a one third section of the brick of clay and
fill the emptied area with Silicone. Then you would remove
another third and fill that emptied area with Silicone...
and so on.
As you create the separate mold parts, don’t forget to press in
the keys on BOTH the exposed sides of clay before you pour the
Silicone. Strong, simple keys are absolutely essential to keeping
a three-part mold together.
A mold with a core is what you need to create if you want to
reproduce, say, a dashboard knob with an embedded brass
shaft. Take a look at the two pictures on the left here. In both
cases, I needed to create two mold halves to hold the metal
parts upon which I wanted to embed into new plastic. The third
part of the mold provided the actual final part.... The newly
poured plastic.
A core doesn’t have to be a part that becomes embedded
into the final cast. For example, I could have just treated the
inner area of the motorcycle air filter boot you see on the
bottom left of this page as a third mold-part (a core), creating
a simple, three-part mold instead of the more complicated
two-part mold you see pictured. I could’ve also chosen to
make the core out of any material other than Silicone.
The purpose of any core within a mold is simply to provide
a space within your cast area that will be devoid of material
when you de-mold.
Or, in other words... a “core” creates a “hole” in your final cast.
How to make your own vacuum chamber for cheap
You will quickly realize that you MUST have a vacuum
chamber to degas your RTV silicone (for molds) and your
RTV urethane rubber (for casting). I built my vacuum
chamber out of some things I found laying around in my This is the vacuum chamber that I use. It cost me
less than $40.00 in materials to build it.
neighborhood and one trip to my local hardware store.

Here’s what you’ll need to build this particular machine...

• A compressor from an abandoned refrigerator.
(Remember that fridge you saw in the ally last week?)
Your spouse will, of course, think you’re nuts when
you start jumping up and down with excitement
when a neighbor tosses their fridge.
• A simple vacuum gauge
– got mine for $7.00 at my local hardware store.
• Two or three feet of 1/4” black, rubber vacuum hose. A close up of the $7.00 vacuum gauge.
– your local auto parts store will have it.
• A short piece of large diameter, white PVC pipe.
The one I’m using is a 3/8” thick walled by 8”
diameter pipe. Or you can use one of those steel
jars with a sealable lid that many people use to
keep candy on their kitchen counters. If you use
one of those metal jars, you won’t need to buy the
Lucite plastic listed below. It doesn’t matter what size.
Just keep in mind that the larger the chamber size,
the longer it will take for your chamber to reach
the level of vacuum needed to be effective.
• Two pieces of 3/8” thick, clear “Lucite” plastic to fit This valve is what I use to release air back into the
chamber when I’ve completed degassing a project.
over each end of the PVC pipe. Make sure that the I mounted the valve to a wood block with epoxy
Lucite is larger in diameter by at least a 1/2” then resin to keep it in place.
the PVC pipe. Don’t use Plexiglas. It can shatter
under the pressure of vacuum.
• Some 1/4” air hose-line fittings. You’ll need 1 bleeder
valve, 7 male-threaded nipples, and 2 T-couplings.
• A thread-tap that matches the thread pitch of the
air-hose nipple fittings you buy.
• Weather strip with adhesive backing.
• An On-Off toggle switch... make sure it’s rated for
your household current.
An on-off toggle switch is nice so that I don’t have
to plug it in every time I want to use chamber.

You definitely will want to re-use the rubber
mounts that the compressor sat on in the fridge.
You may have noticed that both of the vacuum
inlets to my compressor are NOT hooked up to the
chamber. All I can say is that what I’m telling you
to do is better than what I have here. Eventually,
I’ll get around to re-routing the second vacuum
hose on my machine to the chamber.
Here you can see how much the mixture had
expanded before the air bubbles began bursting
out. If I’d left the mixture in one cup... I’d have
had a sticky, overflown mess to clean up.
Get yourself a compressor from an abandoned fridge.
Be careful when you clip the three copper tubes that connect
the compressor to the fridge as there is, after all, refrigerant
gas in those tubes. Let the gas bleed out, and remove the
compressor. Keep the rubber footpads and try to keep the
power plug intact. We’ll re-use it to power our new vacuum
chamber machine.
Find a piece of wood board with enough surface area to
support both the compressor and the section of PVC pipe.
Screw on some rubber feet to the bottom side of the board.
(I picked up a package of round rubber feet at Home Depot-
think it was $4.00) And bolt the compressor to left half of the
top of the board. Make sure to re-use the compressor’s
cushioned mounts you saved from the fridge. Those mounts
will keep the compressor nice and quiet.
Take the PVC pipe and carefully sand each end absolutely flat.
Place one piece of the Lucite over one of the pipe-ends and
drill pilot-holes through the Lucite and into the end of the pipe.
Lay a generous bead of two-part epoxy-resin along the rim
of the pipe and screw the lucite to the pipe-end with drywall
screws. You want the epoxy to squeeze out along the rim edge.
That’s a good thing. That means the bottom end of your
vacuum chamber will be air tight. Let the epoxy-resin dry and
flip the vacuum chamber over so that it’s resting on the square,
Lucite base. Position the Lucite base and pipe assembly on the
right half of the top of the wood board. Drill a pilot hole through
each corner of the Lucite and bolt the vacuum chamber base
to the wood board. Be careful not to overtighten the screws.
You don’t want to crack the lucite base.
Now we come to the only difficult part. You will need to drill and
tap two holes through the side of your newly constructed
vacuum chamber to accept the threaded ends of the brass
vacuum hose nipples. Take your time to drill the holes carefully
and you’ll be fine.
Now it’s time to hook up the vacuum hoses…
There should be three brass tubes coming from the compressor.
Two of them suck air into the compressor body, while the other
blows air out. Which tube is which you say? You find out by
plugging in the pump and feeling with your hand.
Clamp some vacuum hose to one of the intake tubes as follows… Compressor intake tube –
T-coupler – nipple on sidewall of vacuum chamber. Attach the vacuum gauge to the T-coupler.
Be sure to use a strip of white Teflon pipe tape to seal all of the threaded ends to prevent air leaks.

Now, clamp some vacuum hose to the second compressor intake tube as follows… Compressor
intake tube – T-coupler – second nipple on sidewall of vacuum chamber. Attach the release valve
to the T-coupler on this line. You’ll need to find a way to mount the release valve to the wood
base to make it easy for one-handed switch operation.

Cut the Lucite lid into a circle that is a little larger than the diameter of the vacuum chamber and
adhere a length of the adhesive weather strip to the rim of the PVC pipe vacuum chamber.
If you’re using one of those metal canisters with a sealable lid, you won’t need the weather strip.

Find the power wire from the power plug to the compressor. Clip it and wire the ends to the On-Off
toggle switch. Find a way to fasten the toggle switch securely to the wood board. I bought a metal
switch-mount at the same store I got the switch itself.

Operating the vacuum chamber

Plug it in, close the release valve, place the clear, Lucite lid onto the top of the chamber, and flip
the switch. If there are no leaks, you’ll see the lid visibly compress the weather strip flat. When
there is vacuum in the chamber, you will not be able to remove the lid, no matter how hard you try.
You wont get any really useful vacuum till the needle on the gauge hits 29 Hgs. I like to keep my
urethane and silicon mixtures in the vacuum chamber at 29 Hgs for about three minutes.

You can watch through the clear Lucite as the bubbles in the mixture first expand and then burst.
The mixture will expand in the vacuum, usually by about two thirds its volume, until the bubbles
start bursting; then the mixture will collapse back down to slightly less than it’s original volume.
So, obviously, you never want to place a container into the vacuum chamber that is more than
one-third full of mixture. If you do, you run the risk of the material flowing over the container,
making a mess, and wasting your expensive mixture.

Have fun and keep experimenting!

If you’d like to learn more, take a look at the list of resources and suppliers below that I’ve found
to be useful.

Websites (Please note that due to the constant shifting nature of the internet. I cannot guarantee
the state of any of the below listed websites... If the links I have listed here are dead,
I suggest you do what I did to learn the casting process. Do some internet research!)

www.silpak.com
I buy my silicon mold material and my hardcast from this company. They have
always been very helpful when I had questions. Even though it’s obvious that
they deal mainly with large companies with large orders.

www.devcon.com
These people make a rubber that is excellent for the garage caster.

www.freemansupply.com
One of my favorite websites. This place has an EXCELLENT online series of
videos you can watch from your home computer. They cover such topics as
pouring methods, degassing, proper master preparation, etc.

www.cox-internet.com/drspiff/Molding/molding_home.htm
Follow this fellow’s step-by-step process of creating a mold.

www.hobbycast.net/products/machinablewax.html
Now you can buy blocks of hard wax to create your patterns! Much easier to carve and
shape than wood or bondo. You can even polish it’s surface. Heres where you buy it.

Books

“How To Cast Small Metal And Rubber Parts”

by William A. Cannon
TAB books (a division of Mcgraw-Hill) – New York

“The Prop Builder’s Molding & Casting Handbook”

by Thurston James
Betterway Books – Cincinnati, Ohio