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Hi there, I am looking to get mould printed to cast little sculptures. Any advise on which material can be used for this? Something that would take the heat (melting temperature higher than plastic or resin) and that would be flexible enough to be a mould?

Thanks in advance,

Anais.

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Hey Anais_1,

Id advise that you print the item you want to be producing and make a mould out of that. It would be far more efficient and can be done with something flexible like silicon. As long as your model is finished to perfection then all the others produced from the mould will the same.

Printing the mould itself can cause problems, like small holes/pores, which will make the items lumpy. Most materials will melt at high temperatures, unless you were going to go for metal or specialist materials, but they can be expensive.

Creating your own mould out of silicon allows you to pull items from the mould easily, but 3D prints are more rigid and some flexibility ones only bend so far.

Hope this helps. Just ask if you have any questions. I’d be happy to help you.

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Thank you, that’s all clear, printing is not a good option for mould. I know it has nothing to do with 3D print anymore, but I’ll ask in case you can help: I have been looking at how to make moulds, and the process seems really tricky if you have no experience, so I looked for people/companies who would do this for me, and I cannot find this service anywhere (which is why I turned to 3D Hub), but would you know of a UK company that does this?

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Despite living in the UK I’m unaware of any services like this. Could I ask what shape the item is. There are many different resources online like videos and instructions which may be suited to your item.

If you have some spare cash I’d suggest you try it out for yourself as you may find it works without any problems. It may be easier than you think.

I’ll keep an eye out for moulding services and let you know if I find any.

Sorry for not having a direct answer

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Thanks for answering anyway :slight_smile:

It was for this figurine I got printed with 3D Hub, it’s resin 115mm high (first picture top of the page):

Thanks again!

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I think what you’re looking for is something like this How To Make Resin Copies of 3D-Printed Figures - YouTube there are a few different ways and materials to do this, but the concept is the same. For a 3D printed mold, nylon would probably work pretty well