Question about molding plastic

[Commie]

Hey folks!

Have any of you ran into the need (or rather, want) to mold a specific shape for your mod? I'm trying to decide between making and pouring my own plastic (out of styrofoam and acetone), using bondo, or pouring it out of epoxy.

If you've had experience with those, could you suggest what would be better?

The goal idea is to make a base that will hold two tubes vertically in parallel, kind of like the sticker addon for Semovar.

Thank you!

 

[slimest]

For me epoxy resin with some kind of tissue inside is great. Made some bodies - nice.

 

[jrm850]

I use castable resins fairly often at my job and also do some vacuum forming which may or maynot work for you. One of the big issues with the pourable plastics is that you have to degass it under high vacuum before you fill the mold if you don't want air bubbles all over the place.

Freemans Supply is a good source for information and supplies.

FreemanSupply.com - Mold Making, Casting Resin, & Foundry Materials

 

[nicotime]

What I use....lots of casting info....

Alumilite - Products - Casting Resins



The food grade silicone I use also...and they have good resins also...

www.aeromarineproducts.com ...not responding at the moment though.


For degassing I made a chamber with a cast aluminum cooking pot and an old refrigerator compressor.

 

[TomCatt]

If you can make an airtight chamber, you can use one of these to draw a vacuum -http://......./P2pgkw. Screw into a water faucet, hook a piece of tubing to the 'side arm' and hook the other end of the tubing to your airtight chamber. Turn on the water and you'll be drawing a vacuum. I've used these at work and they'll produce around 25 mmHg of vacuum.


ETA:
Don't know if you can see the link or not, if not, search on eBay for "vacuum aspirator"

Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Str8V8ping]

Dont use bondo. Bondo is used for filling small scratches and is only good up to 1/8" thick on scratches . It will just crumble. Epoxy wont work either by itself .You can use a epoxy or polyester resin with fiberglass or carbon fiber clothe. For molding though its better to make a silicone mold and use a casting resin or a vacuum molding with maybe polystyrene sheets. Vacuum molding will take a bit to set up though and a lot of practice to get right

 

[rolf]

hi commie
forget bondo...i plan to use carbon fiber and epoxy
lets say you want a tube scotch tape two batterys together end to end wrap wax paper around it for the clearence you need
a little mold release i use petroleum jelly...will help.wrap the glass or carbon fiber arounf and wet it.after cured push batterys out and cut to length. onother way to form parts is styrofoam hot wired to the shape ...glass or carbon fiber around then after cure cut open and poor paint thinner to eat out the foam .gasoline works like gang busters but is way to dangeres
hope it helps a little rolf

 

[Commie]

Thank you all! This should be great to get me started!