In conclusion, both of these materials have their advantages.

Also, many plastics are sensitive to moisture and have a shelf life much shorter than dental stone. I find that with plastic, I have to be more careful to not make a mess because I cannot simply clean it up with water. Of course this may depend on the viscosity of the plastic you use but what I use is as thin as water when pouring. With plastic you will get perfect castings every time without really trying. However, very detailed molds such as the gothic line or the accessory molds will be more difficult. Most simple block molds will not give you problems. The real disadvantage is that you have to knock the air bubbles out of the mold after pouring the stone in. You can also take your time while casting and scraping because it will take at least 5 minutes to thicken up. If you have the extra money, coloring the plastic dark will remove the need to basecoat the pieces and save you a lot of painting time.ĭental stone is slightly easier to clean up after casting. Most pieces cast this way can take regular spray paint, which works well for the dark undercoat. With plastic, the right kind of mold release such as Mann Ease Release 200 (or no mold release at all) must be used if you want any kind of paint to stick to it. However, you will have to slop on a dark basecoat which probably takes the greatest amount of time when painting. These types of paints are plentiful and fairly inexpensive. Paint sticks well will not scrape off unless the stone underneath is chipped. Sometimes super glue can be frustrating to work with if you do not have good contact between the surfaces.ĭental stone is a porous material so any type of acrylic or latex paint will work. With super glue, blocks must be lined up precisely and there is no adjustment after the fact unless you break them apart. I have not tried regular plastic model cement which I don't think would work because casting plastic is different than what you find in model kits.

Part of this opinion may simply be my long years of familiarity with this type of glue.įor plastic I use super glue (Cyanoacrylate). It doesn't have the instant bond of super glue but you have plenty of time to get things lined up while the glue is drying and you can still make adjustments. I like to use Aleene's Tacky glue which is a white water based glue which sets up in about 5 minutes. I find that gluing dental stone is easier than gluing plastic. However, you can just toss them into a box without damage. Most casting plastics are not as resilient as plastic used in the toy industry so tiny items such as swords would still break if you bent them.īig solid sections of wall might seem a bit of an expensive waste to cast them in plastic. Tiny thin details come out just fine and will hold up well. With plastic, you can cast just about anything and it will hold up without chipping. Dungeon sections will be slightly heavier than if cast in plastic but I like the extra weight which keeps them from moving when set on the table.ĭental stone will chip so you won't be able to just dump all of your dungeon sections into a box. Larger sections such as dungeon walls hold up just fine. Fences, ladders and other small details would break easily and will not hold up to handling. There are many items you simply cannot cast in dental stone because they are too thin or delicate. Be sure you add everything up before deciding on which you want to use. Not only is plastic much more expensive, you also need additional materials such as mold release and colorant which add to the cost.

This same project cost me about $200 in plastic. This project took about 25 pounds of dental stone. In the video above, I was able to cast the Hirstopolis Project with about $40 worth of dental stone and that included the shipping cost. Usually shipping is where the greatest cost is. Using mold release will increase the life of the mold but no more than 50 castings would be expected without obvious damage to the mold.ĭental stone is fairly inexpensive. Eventually tiny bits of rubber will stick to the castings and come out of the mold. Without the use of mold release, castings will become harder to remove depending on the depth and detail of the blocks. Plastic will cause damage to the molds over time. Using dental stone you can get hundreds of castings without any wear on the molds.Īny casting material that mixes with water is completely safe for the molds.

Stone casting plaster