All my molds are made from US Composites PE tooling gelcoat and PE laminating resin. I have a few hood/bonnet molds that I’d like to start infusing, likely with epoxy.
I’ve always used wax and PVA to treat my molds, but would I need to move to something like Frekote to prevent the epoxy form sticking to my molds?
Can I use regular PE gel coat, once hardened, infused epoxy to that. I’ve read and read and do’t find a straight answer. Do I need to step up to Duratec surfacing primer instead of PE gel coat?
Some of my 2-part molds would benefit from the gel coat layer to seal up the parting line for vacuum use.
My normal wet layup schedule with GP PE resin is:
PE gelcoat
.75 or 1.5oz csm
1708 or 2415 Stitchmat
My hoods would come out much thinner, stronger, and stiffer, with less followup repairs (voids in sharp corners) if I could step them up to epoxy infusion. But, I can’t risk the molds to having an epoxy layup get stuck inside.