I have always mixed my own gel coats for mold making. I use silica gel. However, I have heard recently of people using body filler mixed withe thier polyester resin.
Any thoughts on this?
it seems that this would cause shrinking in the gel coat, or make the gel coat weak altogether, but I don’t know for sure
Iv’e done some testing with it in the past and it doesn’t seem to hold up well. The polyester/ bondo mix is too easy to scratch.polyester primer holds up better.
I would get the school to buy gel coat base in 55 gal barrel and then we would have the students to pigment them into the main colors.
Then show them a color wheel as most didn’t know what the base colors were…:rolleyes:
ah, i gotta find some mold gelcoat in some other color…i’m sick of black and orange… 
:mad: 
I think there are some where you can mix automotive metallic flake if you are that bored of black and orange
Why? A dark tool surface is easier to see imperfections and fix them, and orange is a good contrasting color for apply gel coat to and seeing fiberglass wetout.
That is what I am going to use, some just came in about 40 minutes ago actually. I figured orange would be the easiest to see air pockets/dimples because shadows will be easily seen in the orange color when looking at the face of the mold.
I think that may have been some humour. :rolleyes: