9th Jan, 2008

How to Roto Mold Your Own Toy - Jester’s Toy

Designer toy collectors probably have all thought of making / manufacturing their own toy at some point but really have no clue about how to do it. Well even I as an industrial designer have not seen the make-ur-toy-from-garage process presented in a step-by-step fashion. But thanks to R* for linking me to J6Studio’s site where Jester shows how he roto-molded his kickass design. I’m just showing a watered down version here, please go to his website if you want to find out more!

Like all designers, a design starts with a sketch:

sketch.jpg

Then it’s your wireframe and clay model:

Next, you make a mold in a box (you need the walls) with silicon. You can buy liquid silicon from various online sites, it’s basically two parts of liquid combined to make silicon solid just like epoxy.

rotomold_mold.jpg

Make sure you got a pouring hole for your liquid resin to go in (the right pix), if you are rotomolding, then you need a plug (left pix) so the resin don’t come out when it’s spinning.  Jester put a little hole in the plug so some of the heat can escape, very important.

rotomold2.jpg

Now you have to have a rotary spinner. Jester made his own (See his video HERE). For those of you that don’t know what rotary molding is, imagine taking this mold, spinning it in constant speed until the liquid resin inside adheres to all sides uniformly. At the end you get a hallo plastic toy just like the vinyl toys you buy nowadays.

If you don’t want to roto-mold it and are ok with a solid toy, you can just pour resin straight into the mold. Jester also did that. You can also pour translucent resins and other materials in.

rotomold3.jpg

Then WALA! You’re done, sand off the parting lines.

rotomold4.jpg

The design is SWEET and so are the graphics.

Responses

I want to make one!

Great tutorial - but feels like you missed a few steps, its like those 3-step drawing instructionals for Mickey Mouse ;-)

excelent work …impresionante, I like the process and the toy to, ok bye.
from chile

what a cool toy… : )
I’m actually making one by myself (see in customs at vinylpulse.com) and your tutorial was really inspiring me…
(can’t wait my silcotin to dry. ; ) )

greetings from germany,

cAs

looks like flying fortress rip-off!
Ever thought of the mass of trash you are produceing with this toys. This all got mainstream.
I feel so sorry_
Subculture eated by the system.

real, Lighten up!! I designed this character back in 1986 long before there was a toy subculture.

Nice work, Jester. I’ve seen giant rotomold machines in action, and it never clicked that a guy could simplify it and do something unique!

wow really cool, I want to do my own figure, but I do not have the names of the resin, here in Colombia there are not stores for this kind of works, U can give me plz the quimical names of the resins, for example resin of polyester.

another thing, what is a rotary spinner, the link is broken

so cool, i want to make my own.

what are all the materials needed to make this roto mold toy and where can i buy some?

from philippines

how can i make the gray colored thing in the third picture?

Iam building a custom fishing kayak and will want to roto the same .I have alot to learn my trade is auto body for the last 33 years. thank you for your info

Hi! I’d like to learn to make a rotary spinner, but that link for making it was empty. Do you guys have any hints for finding a video that would show how to make one?

Also a few questions:

1. was the clay mold simply dried, or did it have to go through an oven?

2. is the resin in liquid or in concrete form?

3. what’s the temperature for the spinner? I’ve understood the resin should be melted… or jsut in liquid form? Even so, wouldn’t it have to be cooled down afterwards?

4. how did you connect the silicon molds two halves together?

Thank you so much in advance for possible answers. I’m a starting comic drawer, and would love to try this out on one of my characters.

Are you manufacturer of this products? We are interested in your products. May I know if you also make moulds for your products?
What is the material you use to make moulds?

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