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Mold Material Question

 
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Lp Zeppelin
Newbie


Joined: 01 Aug 2007
Posts: 23
Location: Parker, Co

PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:40 am    Post subject: Mold Material Question Reply with quote

Hi jim would making the molds out of mdf board like you be really hard. also would moddeling foam lik the stuff at hobby lobby make good molds or will they dteriate extreamly fast
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Thanks,
Lp
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jegner
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Joined: 30 May 2003
Posts: 2144
Location: Texas, USA

PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

IF you can carve wood, either with hand tools, or power tools, MDF mold making is the way to go. You sculpt the vac-forming pattern directly.

Other options, like clay sculpts, or even foam, are not strong enough to hold up to vacuum forming directly. You would have to go an additional step, making a mold of the scuplt, then pouring the pattern out of Ultracal30.

Trade offs are, the MDF is direct to forming pattern making. No need to make a casting, unless you just want a duplicate. MDF is a wood product, so it requires tools to work with.

Clay or foam is easy to sculpt, but you have to make a mold of it, and cast a copy in a cement meduim.

Jim
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drcrash
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Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 705
Location: Austin, Texas

PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 3:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I find the molding and casting to be pretty quick and easy compared to coming up with a good sculpt in the first place. I can't imagine sculpting with a bandsaw and belt sander.

(I might find it easier to imagine if I had my own band saw and a belt sander, and more experience with them.)

So much time goes into a good sculpt that it seems like a good investment to do whatever you can to make that part go faster, even at the cost of an extra step.

Professional mold makers often do make short run molds of MDF, but I suspect that's usually for relatively simple shapes where you can cobble things together from polygons, round the edges with a router, etc. For subtly-changing compound curves, it seems pretty awkward, and easily-sculpted media seem likely to save time getting it right.
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