The Energon Pub

I've recently become fascinated with the idea of making reproduction parts.

I have a good buddy of mine who works in the plastic industry. I'm not exactly sure what they make, but the company's factory is based out of Three Rivers, MI. Headquarters is here in Chicago. I do know that they do not make toys or anything comparable to that size.

I have had a lot of conversations with him about how they make Transformers. Our conversations initially started with the whole gold plastic syndrome problem. He took one of my broken Monster Pretender figures to his work to have one of his co-workers explain what happens with the gold plastic. He basically just confirmed everything that the fans have come up with about the gold flakes being what causes the plastic to become brittle.

Anyway, I have a feeling that he would be able to help me find the right people to help us come up with some reproduction parts. I guess I would like to know some more information about how to create the molds, especially when the mold is cast from an existing piece.

My buddy thinks that it would cost about $1,000 to make a cheap mold that could knock out a few hundred pieces. Given the number of pieces that TransRepro.com had to offer, it seems like $1,000 a mold would be cost prohibitive to make reproduction parts of some items that I feel are everyday, inexpensive items on eBay (such as the G1 Seeker missiles for example). I could see it as worthwhile if you were investing in this process to make rare parts, such as the Diaclone Marlboor head or the Cerebros sword and were charging a premium price for some of these items. However, transrepro.com was only charging $10 for Cerebros' sword, which is a rather rare and hard-to-find accessory. He would have had to sell about 100 of these swords to make it cover his cost of a $1,000 mold (assuming that's how much it would cost). It doesn't seem like there is or was a market for 100 Cerebros swords on a website the size of TransRepro.com. I don't even think with all of the daily traffic on Seibertron.com that I could generate enough interest in a small accessory for Cerebros that it would warrant paying $1,000 to make a mold for the sword.

I would really like to read some theories about how this process would work and hear if any of you have any reasonable and feasible ideas about making reproduction parts. Given that I own most of the original Transformers toy molds (not sure how to word this in this context ... toy mold meaning G1 Bumblebee and G2 Bumblebee share the same mold, Starscream and Skywarp share the same mold, etc), I think I would be able to contribute a lot of parts to this cause.

Of course, this could all just be a pipe dream. But if one fan was doing it at some point, another could in the future.

I'd make a mold of the God Master Sword, that thing sells for big bucks on eBay. I want one so bad but it cost way too much for me to afford being unemployed and all.

That price sounds about right. I don't think Transrepro worked on the scale your talking about. Ken did most parts to order, and I'm fairly sure that he used a setup somewhere between your average home casting kit and an industrial line. He did smaller runs, most likely in his own home. His selection of "imperfect" parts seemed like the test phases of his runs. I doubt he did more then 30-40 parts per mold. Probably less, and even then not all of them were gonna be perfect reproductions.

Your talking about a whole different level and scale. I know there are a few other small scale Repro guys out in the fandom. But most of those work like Ken did, small batches, basically made to order.

I've done some resin casting, it's not overly complicated but the amount of stuff you'd be able to make is pretty limited.

Stereolithography and Rapid Prototyping is where I'd start. With the right resins, I'm sure you could produce just about anything you'd want. I'd be a little worried about excessive force and abuse with current materials, but for collectors who sit their stuff on a shelf and leave it...

CyberTooth wrote:Stereolithography and Rapid Prototyping is where I'd start. With the right resins, I'm sure you could produce just about anything you'd want. I'd be a little worried about excessive force and abuse with current materials, but for collectors who sit their stuff on a shelf and leave it...

He's right for the most part. However, I have some G-system (gundam resin kits) that are pretty durable. I also have a couple Studio Half Eye variable macross plus kits that hold up well. Of course, these cost roughly 300-700 dollars a kit. However, a Cerebros sword is small compared to those. Use the same resins they do, and it'll hold up nice.

If I could produce things for Transformers on my own to sale to fans, it'd have to be custom stuff, like weapon packs based on G1 weapons, raw energon crystals, stasis pods from beast wars, reapair docks/bays, some energon matrices and some bases/battleships/star-cruisers for all of fandom's favorite figures to call "home".