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[T Legg]

Sounds like you are way ahead of me Krusty . When you speak of tank badges and small parts I think of your Honda bikes. I have two cb750 k1's two k3's one cb750f and one cb 900f. There are a lot of small pieces on those to reproduce. Do you let the playdough dry and if so does it shrink?

[ribbert]

I've had success making small items by using Play Doh for a mold then using epoxy casting resin for the item.
The Play Doh can be re-used over and over.
For larger items and two piece molds I have used a silicone that dentists use to make molds of teeth. I have made a few tank badges that way.

Krusty, you can buy a 20kg bag of Gyprock Dental Plaster for less than $40, you could make a cast of the whole bike with that. As the name implies, it is very fine plaster for dental applications, available at all plater stores.

Noel

[krusty]

Sounds like you are way ahead of me Krusty . When you speak of tank badges and small parts I think of your Honda bikes. I have two cb750 k1's two k3's one cb750f and one cb 900f. There are a lot of small pieces on those to reproduce. Do you let the playdough dry and if so does it shrink?

The Play doh stays soft and malleable (been a while since I last used that word) so it can be re-used multiple times. I found it handy for making switch knobs for 58/59 Honda Dreams which have a  very unusual shape and impossible to find. The tank badges were the small, round Honda and Suzuki items and the long Yamaha ones for DT/RT1s. This was in the early days before ebay and then all the aftermarket producers got in on the act. Much easier to buy repros these days. I joined ebay in 2000 and bought up a lot of early Honda parts from the US from sellers who were clearing out closed shops before David Silver et al.

[krusty]

I've had success making small items by using Play Doh for a mold then using epoxy casting resin for the item.
The Play Doh can be re-used over and over.
For larger items and two piece molds I have used a silicone that dentists use to make molds of teeth. I have made a few tank badges that way.

Krusty, you can buy a 20kg bag of Gyprock Dental Plaster for less than $40, you could make a cast of the whole bike with that. As the name implies, it is very fine plaster for dental applications, available at all plater stores.

Noel

I liked the silicone because it required no release agent and, when set, it was just pliable enough to easily remove the part once it had cured. On the other hand, it wasn't cheap. I used to buy it from a friend who was a dental technician.

[mr blackstock]

When I had the same problem, I just used plastic from a car, for instance the side kick panels where your feet rest while driving, usually the plastic is flat and thick.  A jig saw and a file and 5 minutes, I had a new fuse cover.

I like real simple solutions....
Ignore the duct tape, unrelated solution...

Cheers, Gareth

[T Legg]

I contemplated using wood at one point. Here is a picture of the products I used. I made a second mold and tried to make two more covers but the new mold didn't come out level so I couldn't pour the resin deep enough. The other one came out good so now I have a spare. The mold material I used is mediocre my fingerprints remain from mixing the two parts together and show up on the work as slight ridges.ill try liquid silicone molding material next time. The crappy looking black fuse cover was my first failed attempt using plastifix.