Well, with the cabinet coming along so well, I put that aside to work on another issue: missing trim.
Looking at other photos of this set on the net, I quickly saw I was missing three pieces of trim, all of the same ribbed type like I still had on the front of the cabinet. I needed two smaller pieces across the top, and a piece to go onto the grille, that had to be a bit thicker and curved at the ends-without a woodshop, what was I to do?
I opted to cast the parts I needed using my originals as a guide. My brother and I used to make castings as kids using nothing but Play-doh and hot glue. We actually always kept a gallon of home made doh handy for just such a purpose. I decided to make a mold from play-doh, and cast in JB Weld epoxy. After casting a few pieces, I found that by altering the 1:1 mixture of the two part epoxy, I could make it slightly flexible, which would be handy in tacking it onto the cabinet, as JB weld would normally shatter under such conditions. Here are two such pieces in mid-cast:
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For the piece that needed to be curved on the ends, I only needed to curve the Play-doh mold in the direction I wanted. My brother and I used to call this "active casting" and it is a pretty cool way to custom alter a mold. The pieces I needed came out with a few expected bubbles, but with a quick application of wood filler and a neat sanding, the finished pieces were ready to go onto the cabinet. Would they match okay?