oyimaru -adventures with the Blue Stuff

[barrythornton]

Some people have inquired about Blue Stuff/oyimaru, so I thought I`d share my hits , misses, and failings so we all have a better idea of what it can do to help us.
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Its a sort of thermoplastic ......`slightly` similar to Formcard, in as much as its fairly solid, until you introduce it to hot water.
Then it turns into a supernatural Japanese putty / ectoplasm. I`d suggest getting hold of this stuff just to play with, its amazing.
Its main purpose for us is `unlimited` casting or replicating of parts. ie if a kit comes with an ammo case you can make 2 or 3 more for a diorama.
The reason I got it is I had a grand plan to do a Tiger on a base and incorporate a Panzer Tank badge I had. But then thought that is an expensive item to stick on a model base.

Then I saw Plasmos video on the Blue Stuff.
More to come.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ok , I am a watchin
Learn me up sumthin new

[barrythornton]

The idea is to immerse the Blue stuff in hot water , allowing you to push the part into the goo to leave an impression.
Simple press mold technique.
Works well enough, but could do with finding away of keeping it softer for longer
Paul Bretlands patented decal warmer may help, or a few experiments with microwaves, (its cheap enough)


The negative impression seems clean enough, picked up all the details.
Another idea I had was to cast some Hornet heads for literally `throwaway` face painting practice.


This is where the adventures part comes in.
The ammo case was done in `DAS` air dry clay, this was my bulk cheap material that I hoped to use ..... fairly Brad Pitt results.
Milliput fine to the rescue ........ somethings not right.
Stay tuned.

[digger303]

Plasmo used Epo epoxy.

Heating a plate in the micro wave may help to keep the stuff warm.

[barrythornton]

@digger303 funny thing is , its more how fast it cools, have taken it out of close to boiling water , and its the working time that needs a bit more.
I have achieved some decent results. Just wanted to show the failings aswell . I sometimes think theyre as important as someone making everything look so simple, then , when you try, you dont know where you went wrong.
I`m a fair way aheadof what you see here but didnt want to throw all this up in one shot.
Thanks for sticking with it.

[digger303]

@digger303 funny thing is , its more how fast it cools, have taken it out of close to boiling water , and its the working time that needs a bit more.
I have achieved some decent results. Just wanted to show the failings aswell . I sometimes think theyre as important as someone making everything look so simple, then , when you try, you dont know where you went wrong.
I`m a fair way aheadof what you see here but didnt want to throw all this up in one shot.
Thanks for sticking with it.

I would have thought if you place it on a heated surface the cooling would be slowed ?

[barrythornton]

You may have a point .... the material cools down `in the hand` .... but what you say gives me the idea to put the heated form of the goo on a Paul Bretland copyrighted decal warmer, and pressing into that, may improve things.
Worth noting.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Try sticking a boiling wad of it into someone’s mouth without burning yourself, the patient or frying their tooth
Found it difficult to get a good encompassing impression of the subject or it would lock in place on me in undercuts
I didn’t like the short working time with these materials either so didn’t use them in practice
Still for a two dimensional object, I can see it’s merits

[digger303]

Try sticking a boiling wad of it into someone’s mouth without burning yourself, the patient or frying their tooth
Found it difficult to get a good encompassing impression of the subject or it would lock in place on me in undercuts
I didn’t like the short working time with these materials either so didn’t use them in practice
Still for a two dimensional object, I can see it’s merits

If you try that with a patient.....can you put up a utube vid. I reckon it would go viral

[digger303]

You may have a point .... the material cools down `in the hand` .... but what you say gives me the idea to put the heated form of the goo on a Paul Bretland copyrighted decal warmer, and pressing into that, may improve things.
Worth noting.

Hot air gun might work to....if you could only find a way to strap it to your head ...so as to leave both hands free.

[barrythornton]

The Das and the Milliput didnt seem to be picking up the finer details, so I rolled up another batch of Milliput fine.
This time I wet it, so it was much softer and easier to thumb squidge it into all the recesses before letting it dry.

Much better results, and still only a few pennies spent.
But I could see a flaw ............ its right there on the swastika.
I checked the Blue Stuff mold real close, and the impression in that area was clean, so I scratched my head.

This time I turned to casting resin, figuring it would `pour` better in the nooks and crannys.
I used Xencast P2 fast casting resin (2 part 1:1)
When they say fast, theyre not fooling around, as soon as the 2 parts hit each other and I started to stir, everything got hot !
You have less than a minute to mix and pour, I bought it ages ago and wasnt ready for this.
I got the small amount I needed in there and it turned to plastic as I watched it.... about 10 - 15 minutes!

The Milliput pic looks like that did a better job ...but its just the shine of the resin.
The resin picked all the details cleanly.
Next I`ll show them both primed . Thanks for reading.

[JonMW]

Nice guide! I have a package of this stuff that someone gave me a couple of years ago. Haven't used it much as I keep forgetting it. But I did a test when I first got it to do a two part mold. I found it to work well for that, first making one side and letting it cool down completely before pressing on the other half. My thought when I made it was that the two half's would stick together but they didn't and came apart easy. So you can make more complex molds with it as well to do resin casts.