Im thinking about mould made by infusion. Its perfect way to make high performance moulds and also in the clean way… Problem is, that I usually make moulds by making flange around and seal gaps with clay. This will not work for infusion. My idea is that I will apply few coats of black tooling epoxy, let it almost cure. This will make an air tight surface. Then make layup, seal it with tape against hardered tooling epoxy and infuse. Will it work? Any bridging will probably deform plug-flanges or worse.
why not vacuum bag it? wet layup,and then the bag will remove any bubbles etc…
Vacuum bag will probably destroy clay filled gaps by pressing flange against plug. In some designs it can work very well of course.
Make the model airtight and/or do a wet layup with just a ply or two of veil. Then lay up a fine fabric ply and bag. Then go ahead and infuse the rest as it should be airtight.
Most problems occur when duplicating existing parts that have had flanges put on. Not much of an issue though if the model (plug) is built from scratch and has an integral flange area.
TET exactly… it will not be problem for machined plugs, but for duplicating it is real problem. Maybe I will figure out something.
watch out … if your model plug is too thin and has an air space under it vacuum will implode the plug. So make sure there is no semi-sealed air pockets in the plug… if there are…fill them with something solid like plaster of paris.
I had one plug implode on me once.
This idea interests me… mold infusion. I’m sure it would add strength.