Wild card week

For the wildcard, i had to try carbon fibre composites!!!

Designing The mold

I decided to make a basic mold for exploration purposes,

From my research i understoof that petg is the best material for this application considering the epoxy that we will be using

Also i decided to do a straiht from 3d print mold intead of a mother mold from 3d print, finishing it creating a mold anf then next step.

This is the basic design I made for the mold, its essentially a spectacle holder

I later split the mold in two whihc ill exlain soon why i did so

This is how i laid out my part on the print plate.

Now why this matters is because of Layer lines

Consider this explanation

Assume this is a hyper magnified view of fine .28 mm layer lines as seen on the black line, and blue lines are the resin being poured into the mold

This representation is if the print was laid glat on back, as layer lines would build upwards to the top of the print

Once the resin comes to the wall and dries, it will conform to these layer lines.

Making demolding very difficult. it creates a mechanical lock

Thus orienting the print as such, eliminates the problem as the layer lines are now parallel to the demolding axis.

Note this technique is super efficient and i 100 percent recommend it

Prepping the mold

Nylon peel ply

EL2 resin

PVA release agent

2 cups

Your mold

carbon fibre

Paint brush

This was a horrible horrible idea, it didnt not work at all. Use a pva based release agent !

pouring the el2 mixture in the right proportion

applying a thin coat of resin on the the entire mold first, using a brush but brush creates streaks so be gentle.

Any blemish in coating is a blemish on the finish.

the coats should be a lot more even than this which is where i was mistaken.

Laying down the cf sheet into the mold.

gently press and dab, DO NOT DRAG, THIS WILL FRAY THE CARBON FIBRE WHICH WILL LOOK BAD.

Gently press downward and slowly move outward from the centre.

brush another coat of reisn, again do not brush the mold, only dab and move outward.

after all is set also put a layer of nylon peel ply and anotehr resin layer. for teh finishing touches and let dry for 24 hours

I only did on layer of CF and excessive resin, which was my biggest mistake.

this is what the mold looks after drying.

peel off the peel ply

unfortunately

My poor exp and even poorer undrstanding of the process, is a big reason of the fail I did not properly coat and surely did not know when to stop.

my release agent i used was also a very inferior option.

The mold did not demold, however i was super intrigued wirh the enitre process and will definiltly try to execute the same again soon.

this wild card is to be continued......