Moulding and Casting
For this week’s assignment we will address the issue of Molding and Casting. For our group assignment we will have to review the safety data sheets for each of your molding and casting materials, make and compare test molds with each of them and compare printing vs milling molds
Group assignment week 12
While for our individual assignment I’m going to have to design a mold around the process you’re going to use, produce it with a smooth surface finish, and use it to melt parts.
The material provided by the instructors for this assignment was a 1 lb blue wax block, the dimensions of this block are 145 mm long, 92 mm wide and 38 mm high.
Design
For this assignment I wasn’t sure what I was going to do so I decided to make a mold of the Superman logo, the S. I decided this logo because it’s a very recognizable logo and because Superman was one of my favorite superheroes when I was a kid. So I decided to make my inner child happy.
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The design I did in SolidWorks as it is the program that will best deal with. The first thing I did was to make the base block with the original dimensions of the wax block. Then I started to design the logo on the surface of the block.
The main idea of this mold is just to cut the part where the logo is and then just pour the material with which I will make the figure.
Moulding
Due to time problems I could not make the mold cutting on the CNC router, so I had to do it by resin 3D printing.
Elegoo Saturn 2
- Printing Technology: MSLA
- Build Volume: 218.88 x 123.12 x 250 mm
- Printing Speed: 30-70mm/h
- XY resolution: 0.028mm
- Layer Thickness: 0.01-0.2 mm
- Supported Materials: Supports most resins on the market
Resin 3D printing is known for producing models with very fine details and smooth surfaces, making it ideal for applications requiring high precision and finish quality, such as design prototypes, jewelry, dentistry, and miniatures, among others.
This are all the materials that I'm going to use
Having the file in the format you need to use the printer, the first thing you need to do is put the file on a USB stick and place it on the printer and select the file to be used.
when the file is finished printing, it is necessary that we remove the impression from the tray using gloves and covers, it is necessary to use this safety equipment as this resin can become toxic. Having removed the impression, it is necessary to remove the supports that were put and then put this impression to soak in isopropyl alcohol in the yellow machine shown in the photo above.
Spent at least 15 minutes after soaking the impression in isopropyl alcohol, can be removed and put to dry, drying is fast, this thanks to the nature of the same alcohol.
Finally you can now expose the printing to UV rays, so that it hardens and the printing is not so moldable. This is the end result.
