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Week 13 - Molding And Casting

Here are my week 13 assignment​

This week's focus is on molding and casting techniques to create detailed and precise parts for my projects.

What should I achieve in this week:​

Group Assignment:​

  • Review the safety data sheets for each of your molding and casting materials, then make and compare test casts with each of them.
  • Compare printing vs machining molds.

Individual Assignment:​

  • Design a mold around the process you'll be using, produce it with a smooth surface finish, and use it to cast parts.

Molding And Casting Notes​

Jection - molding you heat plastic pellets and force them into a mold.

Flashing - material that gets trapped between parts of the mold

Injection molding is widely used to make much of what you see around you,

Overmolding is where you put something in mold

Vacuum Former

Blow molding is how bottles are made

Roto molding - tumble the mold, put materia in the mold and then you tumble it in all the axes(pressure)

Die casting is with molten metal investment casting is where you melt wax form

Done for production

Tesserart, 3D projection of a 4D cube

  • bumps and depressions don't align very well
  • not doing an alignment PIN
  • but have the whole perimeter, this will constrain move tightly

Vendors

west machine - boat making

2 ways to make molds:

  1. subtractively by machine
  2. additively by printing

Materials - different ones have different features

Flexible molding material -

  1. mixing - watch the air
  2. strring
  3. poarpoaringting
  4. after a while the material will be fixed

Casting materials

hydrastone - sightly strong dry stone - sightly better looking

custom coins - this can be done as an example

baby power is helping to protect the surface for temperature - not with it will get bubbles

remco - high temp materials

start with UMU, Hydrostone and Drystoen reasonably priced and easy to use, office friendly

Processing, in a messy place

need to be really clean in pouring, cleaning up, keeoing surfacec, clean

Testing is important - make sure the material is in good condition and it's setting properly.

mixing - First mixing in the container to make sure that it hasn't separated internally. Then, pour it out.

(UMU is good material, the "Mold Start" is also good)

The scoop, make sure it is skinny bead.

(skinny bead is preventing air getting in the mold, should be featureless - let the air come out)

Demolding

sloping the part

Safety is really important - safety datasheet

priting a mold and maching a mold - assignment - the smooth surface

falt end mill, ball end mill, 2.5d maching - for the maching mold

Fusion 360 has tools path

Mods - read in STL

rougn first - finsh cutting

3-axis maching is an important skill

Start with a rigid mold, cast an elastomer

FDM printer is not good enough