How Plastic Model Kits are made

General Discussions
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Saw this and thought our many members that are fond of Airfix would enjoy the video.

Respect! In house design, moulding & manufacture. Focus on quality control & passion for the business. A++

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Interesting - I would have liked to see how the molds were actually cut .

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That was interesting

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That’s the part I’ve always wondered about. The actual injection molding part is no big mystery. I’d like to see how the tooling is done, but I guess that the proprietary part of the process.

:beer:

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There is a video on YouTube interviewing the head of FineMolds in Japan explaining the process to some degree - a component is produced in bronze IIRC - through some magic current is put through the piece and the steel of the mold is eroded through electrical discharge to create the basic shape , then the detail is machined or engraved by hand work - I’m sorry I can’t find it to post a link.

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Fascinating.

England and America, two peoples separated by a common language.

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Copper, not bronze electrodes. Graphite as well . This process is called electrical discharge machining (EDM) and can be used , with multiple electrodes and progressively finer settings, to completely finish a mold .

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Here are the links to the videos mentioned, for those interested:

And another video about the manufacture of styrene fantasy miniatures:

Best regards,
CĂ©sar

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Great video ! Thanks for sharing. Interesting comparison between Hasegawa’s packaging system and Airfix’s …

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In the first captioing they called them toys… :rage:

:beer:

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