andy-gts

I have made various small parts over the yrs with carbon fiber and have always used kits to make the female part of the mold.
Could a person just make a mold out of aluminum and be done with it!

I am thinking of this as the last 3 molds i have made over the last yr have warped alittle. and eventually become useless

I have the mock up that mr simard has made and plan on making an aluminum cnc female mold so I can lay carbon fiber for the air intake. this will then be a permanant mold ...hopefully

anyone ever done this!

I check and a guy with a cnc machine will charge 300 for the block of aluminum and 60 an hour for the labor....seem reasonable?????

thought I would check with you guys! let me know

hans14914

Andy,

You can use a metal-filled tooling epoxy, that has very little shrink, and much cheaper than a CNC aluminum plug.

Alternatively, You could make a partial silicone mold (these do need to be stored inside out of the humidity). Get some brush-able silicone, and paint the original plug, do this for several layers until you have some decent build-up. You can then either wall and pour a thick layer of silicone for a really good mold and then back it with plaster, or just skip strait to plaster if you are only pulling a couple parts. Silicone and plaster are both low-shrink if stored in a humidity controlled environment.

Livio928

Hi Andy,

$60 an hour is VERY inexpensive. I have a 3 axis (2.5 axis technically) CNC for woodworking and I charge $120/hr. - double his price!

Speedtoys

How much backing/reinforcement to you add to your molds?
I generally have a # of layers of FG, using powdered FG in the epoxy to really stiffen it up.

andy-gts

most of the small stuff with 1.5 inches of backing ...with something this size I was figuring 4 inches . it is epoxy plus fiberglass I use for the stiffening

Speedtoys

I you add powdered FG to the epoxy...it'll be concrete.

andy-gts

very nice , thank you!