Well I followed the directions on the container for the release wax. Since it was the first time using the plug/mold, I put down 4 layers of wax, and buffed it each time. When I went to seperate the part from the plug/mold, some parts came off easy, while others stuck. After I got the whole thing off, I noticed that some of the resin was stuck to the plug. So now the part has sections where it looks glassy (with thicker coat of resin), and parts that are just barely covered with resin (where the resin soaked into the fibers). Am I doing something wrong? I started working on the part around 8-9 pm yesterday, let the part cure overnight and tried to seperate it around 6 pm today. Did I not let it cure all the way? It wasnt tacky or sticky to the touch. How do I get all the resin off the plug (its plastic)? will it just peel off eventually?
Also for the part, is it ruined, or can I sand it down and put more resin + clearcoat on it. It really doesnt matter if this part is ruined because this is just practice for me, but I would rather be able to salvage it if possible. Thanks in advance.
With paste wax, you need to wax it just about every time you make a part. Try heavy waxing, PVA and a few real “hot” parts to help to cook the wax and releases into the mold.
I am at the same stage with my progress on my project. I have just waxed my plug about six times and spayed a couple of passes of PVA to my plug. I think I went a little over with the PVA. Is that bad? Or the more the better.
you should be fine,any marks left in your pulled product from the pva can be easily sanded out with 1500 grit and then polished up 
Thanks. I guess Ill have to use heavier coats of wax. Ok, for that part that I made, can more resin be added to it and sanded down to fill in the areas that need more resin, or should I just junk it and start over?
So this is it after the machine glaze. It looked alot better after I waxed it. I sprayed some PVA over the plug and I’m going to spray the tooling Gel coat tonight. Wish me luck. is there any tricks I should know before attempting this. I have read that this is the hardest thing to do. Thanks in advance.
my understanding is that once you have srayed the gelcoat on then mold construction must begin within a few hours,not just spray on and then build another day :?
That is the BEST way but I have waited 6 months or more to finish laying up a mold from the sprayed gel coat…
[/i]I understood that you could spray even after 24 hrs. Was I wrong?
you can wait as long as you want. I often store my molds with a layer of clear gel. when I ready to make a part all I have to do is pull it out and start my layup.
but do you mean by that you spray the gelcaot to protect the mold and then when you want to make a part you dispose of this coat and lay a fresh coat or do you mean you carry on building on top of this old gelcoat?? :?
Heres my plug sprayed down with orange tooling gelcoat. I think it came out pretty well. It is was very shiny, but the photos didn’t really show how shiny it really was. But here you go, my 1st step towards my mold.
looks awesome,when are you laying up the mold?
continue with the layup.
I layed up some FG last night. I used Uni-cloth, and Bi-directional cloth, mostly. I did use one layer of chop strand mat, but I really don’t like that stuff, it’s messy, and uses a lot of resin and doesn’t seem to really build any thickness. So I was thinking of using Knit Biaxial Style to quickly build up the mold. Can I use this stuff or is this a mistake.
Okay i’m not using the above material, I bought Woven Roven, It’s described as a high impact, high strength fibre and 18 oz. Heres a picture of the stuff.
For polyester it’s best to use mat, preferably 2oz mat. The cloth you have will do just fine also. Just make sure to lay it up in patches and not one big sheet. Because of the resin shrinkage, you don’t want to lay it up in one big sheet because it’ll pull/shrink and warp your mold.
[/i][/b]I already layed up about 7 layers of uni, bid, and csm. Which had cured already. Would it still warp the mold? It was pretty hard last I looked. And what I laid up this afternoon looks alright, so far. But I won’t be able to work on it until Sunday. So hopefully nothing happens while i’m away.
Just leave it in the plug for as long as you can. Let it cure and shrink completely before taking it out of the plug and you should be ok. I was just being critical anyway, if your part can tolerate a little bit of bending and warping then you’re fine.
I wish I would of read the forum before I took the mold off the plug. It looks good, I thought I was going to have a problem with it because I couldn’t find away to pull the mold off, and I didn’t want to use anything to pry it off. So I did the next best thing; I tried to do the Incredible Hulk thing and tried to pull on the corners until I heard the mold start cracking the PVA loose. But that didn’t work and I started to worry, because I started thinking what if I didn’t use enough wax, are maybe I didn’t buff it enough, or maybe not enough PVA. It sucks when you start second guessing. But I just held it in another angle and the thing just slid out like a pancake of a non stick pan. No popping cracking or anything. Wierd, is that normal, can I expevt this all the time? Probably not huh :lol: . Any way no pictures yet, I have to clean up the mold before I do anything else. And then Carbon time! 