Originally Posted by
JSF-TC
Thomas,
Great work on the molds. Your parting planes and process looks familiar
Questions
What are you using for your alignment dots?
How do you like the tooling putty? I've been making up a thick epoxy mixture with thixotropic silica to support the sharp corners of the mold surface coat before I start laying up the glass. Does putting some glass down first then using the putty work better, and force the glass into the corners?.
I seem to have settled on using 6 layers of 9oz satin twill weave for my molds - it works out to be a 2-3mm thickness and seems plenty stiff once cured.
Rav,
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'll stick to model building. I'm the most apolitical person you've ever met. Wouldn't touch that job with a barge pole!
Glad you are enjoying my stumbles through self-taught scratch building. I'm also working on a Spitfire using similar methods that is turning out reasonably well.
Paul
Paul,
the laser cut parting planes are a life saver!
im using rubber furniture bumpers for the alignment dots. The ones on these are about 3/8” diameter 1/2round style.
as for the putty/dough, the stuff is awesome. I have used it on numerous other projects and if works great for doing small molds like gear doors, hatches, etc.
i put 1-2” wide strips of glass on the parting plane surface with the edge butted up into the corners by the parts. I then mixed up chopped CF strands and epoxy into a moderately dry mixture and put that into the corners to act as a fillet. Then 2oz glass went over it all and i pressed firmly into the CF filled area’s to help remove any air bubbles from the mixture.
i put the tooling putty/dough between the layers of 22oz to help add some additional rigidity to the entire layup.
From trimming the excess, it looks like just the glass area’s is about 2-3mm thick. In total it took about 3 1/2 hours to do these mold halves.