New mold damaged after 1 use

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#21

Glad to know that it helped…

After you spray the duratec, it should kick in in 20-30 minutes. If you wait for say 60 mins, the surface will be really tack free. Thats a good time to apply reinforcement if its an in-mold application.

I’ll stay away from PVA. If you really want a high quality mold, just follow the processes as described by hawkeye documentation. After the mold is mirror finished, then you should use a mold cleaner (marbo-cleaner, 3-4 applications) then mold sealer (marbo-sealer, 4-5 applications then leave it overnight) this will totally neutralize your surface. Over this you can use good quality wax release or semipermanent like marbocote FC or something of that kind.

NOTE: duratec sealer is NOT a mold sealer, it should not be used over a finished mold. It actually is a master plug surface porosity eliminator, over which you have an extremely reactive surface to attach any other duratec product chemically to the substrate. The name is confusing so keep this in mind.

#22

I think all the Duratec products have confusing names, but their products are good.

Please do specify which duratec product you mean. They have about 20 or so.

#23

Looking at the photo that shows the parts of the orange mould sticking to the CF part, you can see the weave pattern in the orange surface. I have always thought that this would indicate a poor bond between the surface and reinforcement? In other words… delamination? If it was bonded properly, wouldn’t the part itself fail rather than delaminate? (Just wondering because I had a similar experience recently.)

#24

Duratech do an excellent range of mould resurfacing coatings and plug or pattern finishing coatings. Don’t think there range of products are to be used as a tooling gelcoat. Suggest you use either an epoxy tooling gelcoat for epoxy layups or a polyester based tooling gelcoat for UP or VE layups. Duratech mould resurfacing coatings probably have film formers in their formulations to assist in finishing off the mould once it has been re-coated. i.e. sanding. You can almost guarantee that secondary bonding of a resin behind these type of coatings will be compromised. Also the level of cure that was achieved as mentioned earlier in this thread would also be a contributing factor, to the stick-up. There are two things that have gone wrong, not just one.

#25

Data sheet of the 1908-045 Orange.
http://www.duratec1.com/dp1904-045%201908-045.html

#26

I think we had a relatively thick layer of Duratec tooling top-coat sticking directly to to carbon fiber. We wanted a light blade so we didn’t spray the mold with any kind of surfacing layer. So between Duratec and CF, the Duratec lost that battle.