RE: Plastic moulding

> When talking about Major Havok roller controllers, someone mentioned
> something
> about "spin casting" or something? I was only half listening, since
> the topic
> was Major Havok :-P.
>
> Anyway, if someone knows anything about having plastic moulds done,
> let me
> know, as I'd like to look into how much it would cost to reproduce a
> Blaster
> joystick.
>
Yeah, that was me. One of our contractors here has been doing a bunch
of casting and stuff. (Making replica Storm Trooper suits and
equipment.)

Spin casting is used to make a hollow-one-piece aluminum casting. The
most economical way to make reproductions in small quantity seems to be
making a negative mould out of silicone moulding agent and then using a
casting resin to make the actual part. The casting resin can be
colored, or simply painted. They're tough too-- it's essentially epoxy.
Amazing amount of detail is possible-- Mike had a 2nd world-war era tank
scope that they resin cast that you could read the lettering from the
stamped model-nameplate.

Doing plastic injection moulding is expensive (as in probably $30-40K to
set up you joystick handle mould) to have a "real" shop do it.
Hobbiest-machines are non-trivial as well.

Depending on the complexity of the joystick handles (I kinda remember
them), a vacuum-formed mould might work too. Tough to get good detail
with it (were the handles checkered?), but you can use "real" plastic.

> BTW, does anyone read my posted questions about using a Sega G-08 w/
> Amplifone
> tube, or are people just ignoring me, or does no one know the answer,
> or is the
> question just too stupid? Or all of the above? :-)
>
Afraid I didn't see a question-- were you the one that used the
paint-stripper to remove the plastic collar off the neck of the tube? I
thought that was a really cool solution... ;-)

-Clay
Received on Thu Nov 5 13:58:09 1998