Bullet & Bullet Shells Mold - Overview/Tutorial (Patreon)

Right so as I said previously I want to make this a more common thing for you guys here on Patreon. Also as I said I want these to be available to all not locked behind a Paywall. I know that the vast majority of people support me here on Patreon because they want to support me and the channel, and I can never say enough how appreciative I am for that. Its my hope that by adding content here for people it will be good for the active Patrons and encouraging for those who are not yet.

Recently I thought I would try out the Bullet Mold from Greenstuffworld.com I have bought a lot of stuff from them to base my models and create scenic effects If you guys enjoy this I'll happily showcase some more things like that Liquid Rust or Dust I used on my Executioner Tank recently?

- IMPORTANT NOTE - I have no plans to do any sponsored posts here, but if I ever am given a product to review for free I will up front disclose that for you - this mold was not given to me, I purchased it in full from their site.

The mold costs £10  (roughly $12 / €11) 

So was it a good product? So far yes its done as well as I had hoped it would and it was easy to do, the only thing that was more difficult than I'd have liked was getting the bullets out of the mold as I will show for you.

So how does it work?

Well firstly you have your mold which is good quality - it says rubber? but I assume its silicone.

(1)

Off to the right you will see two small balls of putty. This is Milliput, its a very easy to use two part craft/sculpt putty, its inexpensive and hardens fully in 3-4hrs. I would certainly use this in preference to greenstuff which I would reserve for miniatures.

The size of the balls is about that of a large pea, I guess a chickpea.

So then I mix these two parts together - and then divided it again into two pieces

(2)

Then the Pea sized mixed putty is ready to be pressed into the Mold - and thats what we do

(3)

So I press the putty down into the mold with a sculpting tool, then press more putty in just using my thumb, and then continue to press in with the tool until I feel its pretty evenly filled. Then I was using a card to scrape excess off the top, I did this in a careful sawing motion - you wouldnt want to use a craft knife as you would likely cut into the mold - it just occurred to me probably the ideal tool for scraping excess would be a paint palette knife - which I do have... I'll try that out next time

(4)

Next I wanted to ensure a smooth surface on the back of the rounds, and I just added some vaseline onto a pen, and used it as an improvised rolling pin to smooth off the mold surface. Then I wanted to add extra detail to the back of the rounds, and I did this by pressing into them with a lasgun I had drilled the barrel on. This didn't work as well as I had hoped, so I probably need to find a better tool for this which doesnt raise that center point so much

(5)

I left it overnight (although milliput cures in 3-4 hours) I wanted to be sure they would be rock solid, apparently you can bake these molds, but I didnt want or need to do this, nor am I sure the temperature or length of time.

So getting the rounds out of the mold was a pain in the ass... on the Greenstuffworld post on their site, you get the impression you can just pop them out easily - haha - no.
Despite pretty aggressive bending of the mold these guys would NOT come out, so I ended up having to stretch the mold, and using a toothpick encourage them out 1 by 1. This took me considerably more time than I wanted it to. But it is what it is.

Its possible if I had maybe dusted the mold with talc or rubbed some vaseline in the mold prior to adding the putty they may have come out more easily? thats something I'll have to try next time around.

I have not painted up these bullets as yet - but they will very obviously be awesome for basing on say a Heavy Bolter unit or even a Primaris with Bolters. I wanted to show how these can look when finished up and added to a model though - so here is a finished image from the GreenStuffWorld site showing them used in a small diorama

FINAL THOUGHT

I was satisfied with the mold, it definitely did what I hoped and formed good enough rounds and shell casings to be used for models. It did take a little time to properly ensure the mold was well filled, and it also took time to remove them cleanly from the mold, so if you're thinking its a 5 minute job and you will be quickly producing piles of rounds, nope it takes a bit of time and patience as does most things with miniatures.

It is though very effective and cheap way to produce great rounds for a battlefield. The mold also has 5 different sizes so you can be producing rounds that are big enough for standard stub/autoguns, to bolters - or even artillery shells. 

http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/inicio/581-rubber-molds-bullets-bullet-shells.html

If you have any questions drop them below - hope you enjoyed and found this useful.