Green plastic army men remade in sterling silver

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neat but too expensive.
plastic is much better for playing with anyway.

This an admirable example of our present economy: for most of us, it’s all about separating those who have more money than sense from their money.

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These are very cool, but yeah. Silver is pricy, how about aluminum?

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And you could probably do a lost wax cast with plastic ones.

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Exactly my thought. I’ll wager you can also cast them in rubber and then make lost casts with spray foam insulation. Thanks for the brainstorm!

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This is the best way to make your silver multiply in multiples of 10 that I have seen in awhile.

I came here to comment on the idea of casting plastic army men and then pouring them in precious metals seems an awful lot like taking someone else’s iconic copyrighted material, duplicating it exactly and then selling it. Sounds like that guy who steals Instagram pics and sells em for $100k. On the other hoof, the transformative recasting in silver: at least the material is radically different. Now if they had cast those Business Army Men… say in rose gold to match my iWatch… pewter is sooooo plebeian dontchaknow (/clenched teeth).

But then I got sucked into a series of Maker videos on mini-foundries, smelting, casting… and my morning is shot. Thanks Boingboing! =) This is why I love this place mang.

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I played with those in the 70’s, the weapons date to the 50’s, the companies that initially produced them began in the teens and generally bellied up in the early 80’s.

Iconic yes, copyrighted, no.

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my grampa used to whittle them out of driftwood.

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I first heard about lost-plastic army men cast in silver back in the '80s and I’m sure it was being done before then. These days the big thing is 3D printing prototypes in plastic and making lost PLA casts. It’s how a lot of “3D metal printing” is done - though some is also a product of sintering…

https://www.google.com/search?q=lost+PLA+casting&tbm=vid

Reminds me of “Coke Spoon No. 2” (Which wasn’t appreciated by McDonald’s).

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I’ll wait for the version cast in unobtainmum, and have them shipped on the backs of baby elephants, thank you.

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