Varies to be honest on the model, as you know undercuts don't help...
The OKI walls say between 30 and 60? never really counted.
I just know that for pretty much all my moulds except the hexes, the amount of mould renewal and the cost is pretty negligible.

The hexes seem to fall to bits after a few casts, almost like I am pouring lead in them...

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Mold release will do wonders for your casting. It's a little pricy depending on what you go with. This is very important though, do not buy a silicone based mold release it will bond with the siliicone in the mold and seal them together.

So i was telling you about mold plates so i thought i'd post this for you.


This is my master mold made from my master part. I want to be able to do consistency in my casts and once this wears out i'll have to create a new mold. I had heard about mold plates so i decided to try it out.


This is my master mold with my mold plates. The mold plates basically take a negative of the mold so i can recreate my mold exactly.


The bottom mold is my mold i made from the mold plates, with a 2% shrinkage this is pretty much spot on in size when compared against each other.

Blind-

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I C

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I also forgot to note that after you start making molds from the plate the 2% shrinkage will not matter as thats from the master mold to the plate because the resin shrinks some. And the silicone will be made from the same sized resin piece.

I have been chatting to my resin/silicone suppliers and they said that even though the mould can be used 24 hours after it has been cast it is best to wait 5 days before casting from it...

I have just made some more OKI wall moulds so will see if there is any difference in mould life when I wait 5 days before using it.
If so then I will try a Hex mould again...

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Did you ask about mold release?

Yes, they know what materials I use and said:

" it will help a little, but not sure how much longer this will increase the life of the moulds."


Given that the release costs as much as 4 moulds, I will be better off just making new moulds...

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It coats four molds? Hmmm thats confusing to me since i use an aresol mold release i give each mold a light spray before i put baby powder and them resin in it

costs not coats...

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I find vaseline dissolved in white spirit is an excellent mould release..... needs a lot of mixing to get the consistency right though...

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The Hex2Go cargo containers are being worked on.









YAY that is good news.


They will be made from metal which will mean no premature mould damage and no limited manufacturing runs. YAY!
They will also be air bubble free! YAY!


They will cost more.

BOO!!


Estimated costs of the big one £3.00 each.
Estimated costs of the small one £2.00 each.


To be fair, that is not so bad when you look at how much metal there is in there...

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Could they be cut across half way and hollowed out? That way you can stick two together end to end and save costs?

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The metal ones are not totally solid..
They could be redesigned and then re-printed, but to be honest (eeek) I have spent so much on these now with various designs and moulds and 3D prints that they will sell at a loss for a while no matter what.

As it stands I will be needing to sell over 300 just to break even, if I get them re-done and reprinted and so on I could make twice as much profit and still need to sell over 200.
Either way it is pretty much a loss leader now, so I really can't just justify spending more on something that is going to make me a loss.

If it was not for the fact I like them and want them myself and that I have promised people I would get them made, I would drop them...

I looked at outsourcing the resin casting to people with more skills than me, but having seen their samples they have air bubbles in them, I did not want that.


sigh..

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