Making a cap for casting + a few updates - Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, 2.7 liter, 2000

Casting 20 "chrome-beauty! :) but bad luck - one cap was missing, I thought garbage and bought it with burning eyes :))) "experienced" in terms of copies, fiberglass, etc., yeah :)))
In general, the first thought was this: we buy a couple of kg of architectural plasticine, heat it, press the original, respectively, we get a mold for casting - fill it with resin, iii ... rejoice)) ) or rather, we smile like idiots when we understand that this miracle will not fit on the disk, because the cap must be the same thickness everywhere (2mm) otherwise it does not sit down by itself ...

Okay, to hell with it, it was decided not to fill it with resin, but to make a vigorous mixture of resin + erosil and already with this "stick up" the form. It was also decided to make the form not from plasticine already (because it is disposable) - a certain amount of gypsum was bought - the cast is taken quickly and naturally :)))
But the trouble is, it’s impossible to pick up the normal consistency of erosil + resin, or too liquid, or vice versa - too much erosil and the surface is not smooth

So...now the fanfare! Climbing on the internet, I found this crap - a paste for making molds and casts (Italian (! :)) - we figure out how much we need and order 6 jars ...

The meaning of the "mega-idea" - a container is made according to the size of the cap

We put the cap itself there and start pouring our Italian crap

gone all 6 cans

we wait for this rubbish to dry and slowly dismantle the container

Now the most difficult thing is to cut our product exactly in half and somehow remove the cap

after some manipulations with the blade, we succeeded! cheers! :))) yeah damn it :)

As a result, this is what happened - after a day of "downtime" (because it was not possible to immediately fill with resin) - this crap led, it began to dry in places, etc. in general, the form went in one place:(((Actually, the material is good, but it is only useful for very small blanks ... well, how to get warm "what is the point of tuning? IN TUNING!" I said to myself once again and boldly threw it away in the bin failed "trick" (already about 4000 rubles.)
Then it was decided to still make a human copy using the usual technology - gelcoat, resin, glass mat ... Why didn’t I immediately take up this method - I hadn’t done such detailed blanks yet and most of all that I stopped - I was afraid to finish the original cap. Well, actually, that’s why I gave it to another person who is a master of his craft, our acquaintance with him turned up very successfully, he undertook to do it purely out of interest of his own :)
In general, a week - and a couple of caps of almost perfect quality I already had (1500 rubles), there remained them now chrome...

The search for those people who would undertake to chrome the cap (2000 rubles) for casting took another week, and the result is in the photo (already on the disk)

In general, as a native :)))
And here are almost all intermediate options :)) from best to worst, from top to bottom:

I haven’t been able to take care of the car for a month now — either work, or something else, in general, there are always some troubles, I’m already angry just going n *** just: (((During this time, I just tightened the second side (uff, well, we fucked it’s easy with him) and began to “pack” all the covered parts - so that God forbid, they don’t get dirty with resin, etc.

In early August, I'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks (more precisely, I'm changing my place of work and I hope to snatch a couple of weeks of respite) - so I think I'll move to the garage for this time :)))) I need to have time to do "something" by August 14 on which it was possible I would like to go to local competitions :)))
PS If one person does not let you down, a "small" update of the system is expected at the weekend, very interesting :)))