Week 10

This week we had to make a mould and then cast a part of a product. I decided to make a main part of Curiositer (or simpler Cury). It is its body.

Making the mold

First of all, I’ve made a mold by mixing two fluids. I chose a Mold Star 15 Silicone Rubber, fast material with a 6 minute pot life and and 30 minute cure time.

After 30 minutes mold is ready for the next step:

Casting

The second step is casting. I mixed Silicone Rubber 1A:1B by weight.

It is MoldStar 16 Fast, fast material with a 6 minute pot life and 30 minute cure time. There were 2-3 very small bubbles during hardening process which were expelled by my hand. The most difficult part of casting process is cast opening and dismounting.

This is the result of casting:

One more cast

I decided to made one more cast to define differences between texture, color and stiffness of the plastics. This is the photo of Biresin G26 Component B filling process:

Need to say that there was no bubbles with this plastic. And here is the result, mould and two casts:

Here is the short video of the whole moulding and casting process:

Conclusions

1. Moulding and casting processes are quite easy to do today. You have to design and make proper casting mold with all design rules applied.
2. Pot life and cure time for casting could be between 6 and 60 minutes. It makes casting advantageous process in comparison with 3DP. And it is relatively the same in terms of cost.