Metal Molder (was Re: Casting your own...)

Kr'rt wrote:
> 
> Well, during a recent recon to Toys-R-Us, I noticed a couple things of
> interest.  The company name fails me, though.

It's ToyMax
http://www.toymax.com/index.html
 
> First, there is a home casting machine that uses little metal pellets
> to make little charm-sized cars, spaceships etc.  This was on sale for
> $10 or so and, upon reflection, will be purchased by me tomorrow. <G>
> They sell little vials of pelletized metal and extra mold sets as
> well.

This one is called the Metal Molder.  I bought one myself last week and
the only
mold set that was still in stock (some silly little cars with "working
wheels",
wheee!)

There were three version of the same kit.  The first one had a wizard, a
flying
skull and two more molds.  A later one (the one I found) had a flying
skull, a
silly robot, a baseball mitt and boxing gloves.  
http://www.toymax.com/toycentral/cc/metalmoulder.html

There was a third made specifically for 'girls' that was the same thing
in pink
with molds for angels and flowers and such.
http://www.toymax.com/toycentral/cc/preciousmetals.html

The molds themselves are fairly detailed.  Nothing spectacular, but
they're nice
enough.  The skull might make a good statue (or Blood Bowl trophy) the
robot is
pretty lousy and the baseball mitt and boxing gloves are useless.

The operation is pretty simple.  You clamp a mold into the holder, pour
one
premeasured vial of metal into the 'pot' and turn it on.  There are all
sorts of
safety features so that you have no way to getting near the metal while
it's
hot.  So, you sit and wait for it to melt.  Oddly, it melts 'in shape'
so you
might leave it for 30 minutes and not see a change, until you shake it
and all
the beads disappear into a puddle of goop.  Then pull the handle and it
flips up
and pours the metal into the mold.  Wait until it cools (you can't open
it until
it does) and take the piece out.

One minor flaw I have found is that you will usually get a lump of metal
stuck
to the 'spout' between the pot mold.  It's a bit difficult to remove and
I've
been worried abotu breaking something whiel doing so.

The metal metlas at a relatively low temperature. (no idea how low, but
it does
not affect the plastic if spilled)  It is VERY brittle, but fairly
strong.  As
an aside, the vials are very useful for storing small parts, and you get
a bunch
of them in the kit and extra packs.

As I mentioned before, I only found one mold set at Toys-R-Us.	In fact,
I
called all of them in the city (5) and got the same answer.  Tons of the
boxed
sets, tons of extra metal, no molds.  Kay-Bee Toys has just the boxed
sets but
you might be able to find the wizard set there if you look hard enough.

Whiel doing more research on the subject, I came across a web page that
has some
more details:
http://www.penrite.com/john/thing/thing1.htm

It's mostly dedicated to another casting toy by the same company (baked
goop
into bugs) but has a small section on the Metal Molder.  Most
importantly, it
gave the information that you can order mold packs directly from ToyMax
at
800-222-9060.

I called them and got three more packs, Sharks, Samurai Warriors and Jet
Fighters.  Each came with 2 molds and a few more vials of metal.  ToyMax
charged  me $12 each, plus shipping.  Most anything you can find at the
stores
seems discounted to $2.50 a piece.

Sharks: 
	A hammerhead and 'regular' shark.  Both had rather large
mounting holes 
	for 'flying bases.'  Detail was decent, but there was a real
problem 
	getting the tips of the fins to cast.  They're not on a mold
edge, so 
	the standard vent won't work, so I'm trying to poke a hold al
the way 
	through (and hope it doesn't just all spill out).  These are
certainly 
	usable for underwater fantasy armies or whatnot)

Samurai Warriors:
	Very cheezy robotic-like fighters with swords.	Also came with
mounting 
	holes. (this time for plastic rings or clips, they're pushing
the 
	'collect and wear' issue more than the gaming issue)  Pretty
much 
	worthless.

Jet Fighters:
	Two decent jets.  One is sort of modern looking the other is
more wedge 
	shaped.  Not bad, I coudl see using these for low-tech forces in
DS2 or 
	similar.

There are a few more packs that would probably be useful for game
pieces:

Spaceships - corny, but they might be worth it
Jurrasic Park dinosaurs - one biped, one flying
Sea creatures - from the 'girl' version.  A turtle and something else

I've also seen an 'ad' for a bunch of single mold packs.  There looked
like some
really good ones in there, including wizards, alien creatures, etc.  

If anybody is interested, I'll take some photos of the castings I have. 
I'd
also be willing to send some to people, if you're looking for a few
sharks or
jets or whatever.  The extra metal kits cost $2.50 for 10 vials and I
plan on
picking up a bunch to play around with.  So it's only really costing me
$.25 per
figure to cast them.  If anybody finds some of the above molds, I'd love
to get
my hands on them as well (especially the sea creatures and dinosaurs)

> Second, there was a plastic army man injection molding kit, also by
> the same company and this was for $20 or so.	They gave you enough
> plastic goo and molds for several soldiers that are molded in a
> top-half, bottom-half format.

...called the 'Super Injector.'  Not (IMHO) useful in any way for gaming
pieces
though.
http://www.toymax.com/toycentral/cc/superinjector.html

Tom

--
Thomas Pope
Human Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tpope