Hi All,

My name is Mike, and I'm a professional sculptor/caster (though I prefer the label "toymaker"). My company is Casting Fool & Son, located in the sunny state of Georgia, USA.

I was recently approached by a forum member who expressed interest in CF&Son producing a limited number of fascia and clear/tinted buttons for use in applications similar to Brian's excellent conversion.

I've scanned through the threads related to the fascia/button issues, and there seems to be a great deal of excitement related to this topic.

To those having problems with bubbles, I recommend that you try visiting www.alumilite.com and read through their website and FAQ's. In short form, you need to set up a pressure chamber for the actual casting. (The resin can be vacuum cured, but the mold will need a large reservoir for the resin as it expands out of the mold and collapses back.)

Vacuuming the newly mixed resin will help to eliminate some of the bubbles, but unless you spin cast (more expensive than a pressure setup) or pressure cast the resin-filled molds, you will probably not eliminate all of the bubbles from your finished castings.

Keep in mind that you absolutely MUST vacuum the uncured RTV silicone used for the molds if you intend to pressure cast with the mold. Alternately, you can pressure cure the mold, but I've always found vacuuming the RTV much simpler and it keeps my pressure chamber free for casting. BTW, you need to get your vacuum down close to 29" Hg to really get the air out of the RTV.

Also, depending on your choice of resins, you may have to post heat cure clear castings for 5 to 16 hours depending on the type of resin. If you don't do this, the resin will never reach it's full hardness. Read through and completely follow the instructions that come with your choice of resins.

I have to research several issues before I can consider committing to this project: 1. The infamous copyright issues (my own policies on this are very strict), and 2. Will there be enough sales to justify the investment (normally a project of this type would involve $1000.00 -$2000.00 to set up.)

If there was enough of an interest and I were to commit to this project, I could be producing fascia and buttons by sometime near the end of June 2003. I would not be providing the electronics, only the fascia and buttons.

Color choice could possibly be left up to the buyer as I can reproduce a large variety of colors, but specific custom matches would insanely increase the price of the set.

For example, the solid (not clear) fascia could be colored to coordinate with the buttons, or (again, for more $) I can permanently metalize the resin fascia with a gold, silver, bronze, copper, or gunmetal finish.

I have this set up to forward any response to this post to my email, as time is tight and I won't be able to spend a lot of time coming back to check this thread.

Should anyone associated with the present owners of the copyrights on this system be listening in, please feel free to drop me a line and point me in the right direction for obtaining a limited license to reproduce the fascia/buttons. Thanks.