Breaking the Mould

Regular readers of this blog will have no doubt seen the various posts concerning the Minifigs/BMC ships I have acquired and of my continuing search for some others to complete the navies of both Fezia and Rusland. Whilst I am happy to trawl through Ebay and visit toy fairs and the like it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it would be easier to merely drop cast the models I require. This is virgin territory for me - both from a practical and legal perspective - and so I will need to carry out some serious research into the feasibility of such an approach.


I am quite sure that since the ranges are in fact no longer available - either from Minifigs or BMC - the issue of copyright may no longer be a consideration (although I would have to check this). Commercially available mould making kits for home casting are easily obtained from any of a variety of sources and so for the numbers I envisage casting this would not be a major expense - nor would the original models used for such moulds need to be sacrificed. Of the models I own the detail is sufficiently basic that some pretty good copies could be made and now that I have some suitably generic types to play with this suddenly becomes a very attractive proposition.


I have a selection of battleships (including some dreadnoughts), cruisers and destroyers; together with a couple of submarines and a merchant ship that could be 'moulded' and I could even attempt some minor conversions that could then in turn be 'moulded'. There are a number of firms on Ebay and on the net that sell 1/1200th fixtures and fittings - including various calibres of gun turret - so the possibility of dressing up a basic home cast hull into something unique is a compelling temptation.


I also have a further avenue to consider with this as well….;-)