making a clay (or other) mould

[szw]

I'd like to start experimenting with making fiberglass pieces.

What kind of material would be best for shaping something to use as a mould?

I was thinking clay would be easy to work with without a lot of tools. But I don't know what kind of clay, or even where to buy it. (or how much it will cost).

I thought of using some wood but I don't have much tools at home, and it seems fairly difficult.

I've heard of styrofoam, but I imagine it to be very difficult to work with. (I'm picturing the regular styrofoam you get when you buy TV's, appliances, etc..etc, perhaps there is a special type which I don't know about)

Thanks

[eur0]

styrafoam sucks, i spent 4 hours cleaning it up cutting the stuff haha, try clay

[HACHIROKU_4AG]

wood isn't too hard to work with, all you need is a chissel, mallet, hand plane, and alot of patience. if you cut too deep, putty it up.

[RickDaTuner]

Maby try using balsa wood blocks, inexpensive wood and its very easy to work with

[ninspeed]

there is that messy foam like in tv boxes and such.. but i know the foam that i allways see in silk plant vases would probally work really well. Try A craft store, or there is a silk plant place on Center Street s (Right by WS automotive)

[T5_X]

how bout that though polystyrene they use for house insulation?

[jdmakkord]

there are tons of different types of styrofoam. I used to work in a factory that makes the shit. Some you can actually cut and sand down real easy. Just turns into powder.

[D'z Nutz]

Actually, do a search on fibreglass. I recall a similar, if not exact, topic came up a while back.

[szw]

will do.

I'm heading to a fiberglass supply store tomorrow which carries polyeurethane foam, which supposldly should cut like butta!

[jdmakkord]

all you need is extremely high density styrofoam

[szw]

Where can I find that? I went to revy and home depot, and didn't like any of the styrofoam's (insulation) that they had.

[jdmakkord]

I'll see if I can get u some. What measurements do you need? I still get it real cheap/

[szw]

like minimum of 1.5foot x 5foot x 3 inch thick. But I'd need twice as much in case I screw up once, so maybe 3ft x 5ft x 3inch.

Where do you get it from? I need to go pick up the fiberglass, epoxies and everything else as well.

Oh and how are most lips attached? bolted on? For mine i'm just gonna use double-sided tape before I try and figure out how to mount bolts in there.

[Horatio]

I can't remember the name of the place but there's a place in the NE that sells stuff for boat builders and they would most likely have the foam you need. I think different type of foam are referred to by different general names like styrofoam is the stuff that makes a big mess with lots of those little foam bubbles if you try and cut it with a knife. I don't think that one in particular would make a good mould even if you could cut it cleanly because the stuff seems so porous that I think you'd have a hard time sealing the foam off from the solvents in the stuff for the fibreglass.

From the articles I've read online so far, high density foam is one of the easiest mould-making materials to use 'cuz it takes nothing more than some white glue and a knife to shape it. Check out sites like www.hotrod.com and www.carcraft.com they frequently have little articles about working with composites (including one with carbon fibre). I've even heard of guys using that expanding foam fo sealing doors and windows to cast moulds of body panels to make hoods and doors etc...

Not to be one of those guys to say "go look it up" but there's TONS of stuff online which is part of the reason I don't happen to have anything bookmarked to offer you. The library should have plenty of stuff about this too. There must be something to be found in the Yelllow Pages...

Hopefully this helps,

Greg

[95acc]

You will ahave a problem with styrofoam as a mould. The resin will melt it try something else.

[Neons4life]

What are some of these sites that tell you how to make carbo fibre parts?

What are the different parts you need to make carbon fibre parts?(resin, fibre glass, etc?????)
I can't seem to find any good sites on this

Thanks, James

[Horatio]

Sorry I don't have more than this; I think most of the stuff I had about this was stored in my "inbox" as mail to myself and that all got wiped out when my computer puked a couple of months ago.

PM Hobbycraft has small packages of Kevlar and Carbon fibre with the needed matrices (supposedly the proper term for what we're calling resin) along with fibreglass stuff. This way you can practise on relatively cheap stuff before forking out for lots of it at a time.

www.HotRod.com went through how to make a simple CF panel a couple of months ago and it looks like a lot of the Domestic magazines are starting to follow suit. If you're buying Import tuner mags, have a quick look through the Rod and Custom types as well, they often have stuff about firbreglass and CF.

Hope this helps!

Greg




http://www.resin-supplies.co.uk/fibre_types.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metals.../message/34403

[Dr. Evil]

I made the mistake of buying those large sheets of white foam from a craft store. I spent an entire day making the perfect mold, then glassed it up... only to come back and find large parts had sunk in and other areas bubbled out.

Make sure the type of foam you use is designed to handle the chemical reactions and heat of the fiberglass resin!


Oh yeah... and wear gloves.

[szw]

yes, I researched and found many sites dealing with moulds, plugs, fiberglass, and carbon fiber. I don't have them on this computer, I'll send them to you later if you wish.

[Horatio]

I wouldn't mind having a look at those too, please. I found one site that had some scans out of a magazine that was great and I did the idiot thing and not save it.

Thanks!

Gerg