Industry Insight: Renedra Showing Convential Mouldmaking using 3:1 Master Models Part One

Renedra: Over the years that we have been in this business and have had visitors to the factory one of the things Terry enjoys is showing them our manufacturing process. We also get lots of enquiries online about mould manufacture so we thought that we would do a mini blog using our Facebook page to give an insight into this.This is only one method (conventional manufacture using 3:1 masters), and with kind permission of Alan and Michael Perry (Perry Miniatures) we will be basing this ‘live’ on their latest project - The Light Cavalry – we collected the 3:1 masters on our visit last week to Nottingham – hope we can make it interesting.

Step 1 – Meeting with the sculptors/customers to discuss their requirements, size of frame, change inserts for later use. Doing a mock layup so that the frame is technically ‘laid out’ so that it will fill with plastic, considerations for the gating positions, ejection positions and that the frame is pleasing to the eye. We are sometimes asked about ‘gaps’ on the finished frames, we do put as much as we can on a frame but any gaps are for technical reasons, i.e., sprue area (where plastic enters the frame) or high 3 dimensional shut outs that take up room in between individual parts, this we will try to show using photographs as we progress.

Step 2 – This is all about preparation, taking quality masters that are finished to a high standard, we set them up on a putty in the best position to minimise undercuts and best condition for the split line, we then check to ensure that they are undercut free, making slight adjustments to the figures where necessary, anything that would ‘change’ the design of the master we would return the master to the sculptor.

Split lining we do this by traversing the masters using a split lining tool, this indicates where the split line will be and it must travel ‘unbroken’ completely around the figure, this process must be done to every part that is going on the frame (sometimes over 60 parts) this process is labour intensive and can take several days, but getting it right at this stage makes the final product as good as it can be. More interesting insight in the production process over at Renedra can be found here.