A while ago someone stated easy composites just relabeled their items and everything could be sourced elsewhere. I may have a complex mold to make or rather just try something new and their epoxy putty got my attention. Does anyone have a clue where it’s from, or does anyone recommend how I would make my own?
I’m afraid of the epoxy heating to quickly and cracking like when you have resin left in your pot, unless there is some special type of epoxy out there to use and also the filler since it looks almost like a cement mixture “not to wet but dry enough to stay in place”. Wondering what the fillers are or does anyone have a formula they would care to share?
Not looked on their site but is " their " epoxy putty blue and yellow and comes in two sticks by any chance ???
When mixed gives you a off green colour ?
Adtech make a system where one part is blue an the other part is yellow giving a green dough. Freeman sells a media (DT 081) like very fine sand which can be mixed with a slow resin giving a dough. It is recommended that the dough is backed up with one to three layers of fiberglass but a small mold wouldn’t need this. An epoxy mixer is needed for anything other than a small mold.
Hey guys thanks for the replies. Here’s easy composites putty in a video. It looks grey and has a blue hardener. It may be dyed to help conceal the true color though.
Do you guys have any links to items you have in mind? It doesn’t need to be exactly what easy composites used but it works better then bondo or fiberglass with carbosil and fibers since that stuff heats up a ton.
The Freeman web site has plenty of videos of their products. I think you’d like the adtech two part system, very similar application to the video you posted.
Contact Nick DiMeo at Competition Marketing (http://www.competition-marketing.com/WP/contact-us/). He will source it from Premium Resin Tech for you. This is the stuff I use and it’s fantastic: RDR6002/RDH6002 Tooling Dough.
Right got a few minutes to myself so…
When you said “putty” the first thing that sprung to my mind was Araldite AV1580
Comes in two bars like plastacine but slightly stiffer.One Blue an one Yellow you cut equal amounts off each roll and mix them together.
Hard th do when you first start off an you really have to work it an kneed it but all of a sudden it starts to blend together an it forms a greenish putty that is VERY strong
Used for everything from sticking tooling bushes on moulds,making small moulds, mould repair an component repair
More of this stuff used in F1 than you would ever belive ! When the xxxx hits the fan an you need something quick it can be a God send
Can handle 135 reg cure at 90psi in a clave no problem.
But,once you posted the YouTube link I knew what you were after
Look on www.alchemie.com
What’s shown is Alchemix EP4350
That’s the main component
You also use gelcoat EP4062 and coupling coat EP4062c a very good system !
Gel up,make sure you leave it long enough. You want it set enough that you can touch it and it dosent stay on you finger an you should be able to leave a nice fingerprint in the gel
You then apply the coupling coat
Then the main component, we were doing 90psi cooks so we wanted a good surface Finnish or air bubbles popping an found it was best to put a thin coat on that really combines with the coupling coat Then the thicker coat
Can’t do a link but if you Google
RTN Elise race car
Look at images and you will see a one off Elise we did for the far East championship
Lot of the images come from sandsmuseam.comm
About the 25th picture that comes up is the car made of styling clay with blue doors
Click on that an it’s direct to the section of the sands site that details the build of the body moulds for the car that a friend and I did
All done with EP4350 and really shows what can be done with it
Want any advice just ask
I just found and read the build. That’s great stuff and exactly what I was looking for! I think the only thing I didn’t understand was they mentioned supporting with mdf board. Can you maybe explain that and typically do you want to do the perimeter and then cross the center section to give the mold strength to not twist also? I was thinking about some steel 1x1 tubing and then just epoxied on he back but cutting mdf is much easier then cutting and then welding steel.
I may try that zpreg also. I don’t have easy access to an oven and need to touch base with a company I can pay to use theirs so i’m trying to figure out the logistics of things.
Have you heard of anyone putting heater coils inside the mold to use out of autoclave prepreg? I wonder if it’s doable as long as the lamination isn’t to thick so it can reach the top of the laminate stack.
you can use resistance heating wire, or carbon fabric for heating. Definitely can get hot enough. Just need to design the mould well, and make sure the backside is well insulated to transfer the heat to the surface more efficiently. Probably find that making an oven, or buying one is simpler and more effective, but really depends on your project. We have made hundreds of heated moulds before, longest being 88m, so defiantly doable.
Any tips on how to design? I mean it’s about a 3 foot by 3 foot item that’s pretty flat. Any links you could advise? I figure also I could insulate the back with some type of insulation tape and cover the entire backside so it transfers forward.
you really need to put the heating solution in the tool laminate. It takes much more energy to transfer heat from outside tool surface to the inside tool surface and then into the part.
Sure, that would be about 1m2 of surface, if you use a 1ohm/m wire spaced at 20mm, with 220V you will have 968W/m2, at 4.4a. Alternatively you can use a 0.5ohm/m wire and achieve 1936W/m2 at 8.8a(9a is about the max this wire can stand). Benefits to using the lower resistance wire is the thicker, so less likely to break. There is many different resistance wires you can get, so depends on what you want to achieve in terms of ramp rate. Then all you need is a PID and SSR to control it. You can buy wire from Pelican wire in Florida. Good luck
I looked up briefly and it looks like it may work. Saves me from building an oven or having to drag my mold to someone else to cure for me. This is great news if things will work.
I’m looking at a Watlow f4 controller also since I’ve used them in the past. I guess the trick is to somehow set it up where I can run the mold safely and store it while taking the controller off without breaking or damaging it and move it to the next mold potentially.
The f4 is really nice, Watlow came here a couple years ago and demo’d it. Expensive though. You could literally buy a $50 cheap PID and it will do what you want. Guess it depends on the budget you are on
