BonzRus
New Member
Awesome stuff Jeff! I love seeing pictures of things you made long ago and are now sitting in your attic. The molds are awesome!
I would have to say that my experiment last night was a success as I was able to very easily produce a curved dread in my mold. The foam retains its memory as poured once set up so now I am looking at options to clamp a PVC shell around the new mold I will be making once I finalize the plug. Here are a few pics of essentially all I did and the results of it.
All I did was to simply pour the foam, clamp the top in place and prop the lower part of the mold at an angle with some boxes. I did not use a cord in this one and it released from the mold with no problems using the compressed air.
The dread came out nicely curved as a result.
I gave it a quick spray of plastidip and because it was poured without a rigid shell it did cause a little swelling in the silicone mold about 2" from the largest end so I cut through it with a knife at the largest point to take a look at the foam and this is what it looks like. It is actually darker than the lighting in the photo makes it appear.
Overall while I would prefer it to be black all the way through this is certainly workable and I may look at experimenting with some black powder pigments since BJB will not sell the pigments for me to do it myself I just may have to try some on my own and see what happens. George if you read this, do you have any experience with mixing powdered tints in urethane foam? BJB makes it sound like it is a lot of trouble so will only pre-mix 5 gallon quantities at a time as a result. I am certainly willing to acquire some black powder tints and experiment...any recommendations? Type to use? Quantities to try? I have considered getting some iron oxide black powder tint and try mixing it about 5% by weight to part B with a good mixer just to see what happens or is there more to it than that?
Now that I have determined that a seamless pre-curved dread is workable I am going to focus on an easy way to make a curved PVC jacket to clamp around a silicone mold. Once I have determined the length to make my new plug I will make a straight PVC tube mold, split the mold and then I could either pour them straight if desired or clamp the mold in the curved jacket and pour the foam. So far this is working out well. I have a video I will post soon of me demolding this curved dread.
Steve
I would have to say that my experiment last night was a success as I was able to very easily produce a curved dread in my mold. The foam retains its memory as poured once set up so now I am looking at options to clamp a PVC shell around the new mold I will be making once I finalize the plug. Here are a few pics of essentially all I did and the results of it.
All I did was to simply pour the foam, clamp the top in place and prop the lower part of the mold at an angle with some boxes. I did not use a cord in this one and it released from the mold with no problems using the compressed air.
The dread came out nicely curved as a result.
I gave it a quick spray of plastidip and because it was poured without a rigid shell it did cause a little swelling in the silicone mold about 2" from the largest end so I cut through it with a knife at the largest point to take a look at the foam and this is what it looks like. It is actually darker than the lighting in the photo makes it appear.
Overall while I would prefer it to be black all the way through this is certainly workable and I may look at experimenting with some black powder pigments since BJB will not sell the pigments for me to do it myself I just may have to try some on my own and see what happens. George if you read this, do you have any experience with mixing powdered tints in urethane foam? BJB makes it sound like it is a lot of trouble so will only pre-mix 5 gallon quantities at a time as a result. I am certainly willing to acquire some black powder tints and experiment...any recommendations? Type to use? Quantities to try? I have considered getting some iron oxide black powder tint and try mixing it about 5% by weight to part B with a good mixer just to see what happens or is there more to it than that?
Now that I have determined that a seamless pre-curved dread is workable I am going to focus on an easy way to make a curved PVC jacket to clamp around a silicone mold. Once I have determined the length to make my new plug I will make a straight PVC tube mold, split the mold and then I could either pour them straight if desired or clamp the mold in the curved jacket and pour the foam. So far this is working out well. I have a video I will post soon of me demolding this curved dread.
Steve
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