Seem to have made one step forward and two steps back today.
I made a set of moulds yesterday for making some grab rails for the deck, but for some unknown reason ( and I've never had it happen before) the both halves set (at different times) with humps in the centres of the mould........so that when I sandwich them between two pieces of ply the outer edges of the moulds don't clamp up properly and they weep any resin that is poured into the moulds.
So I have had to make the boxes again to fit the mould halves and tomorrow I'll mix some rubber and catylist and pour the rubber into the moulding box, and then place one half at a time over that rubber.......this will then give me some "flat" surfaces that when sandwiched between the ply backing sheets will give equal pressure all around the mould.
But that wasn't the end of the story..........I bought on line some Polyurethane quick set resin a few weeks ago.
now this stuff is supposed (as I have always found in the past when casting) to remain subtle and not crack or shatter, and is actually carvable even when months old and fully cured.
Well this pack of stuff that I bought from a new supplier ( to me...They've been around some time though) is possibly a bad batch, as the resin shatters even when splitting the two haves of the mould.........it is more brittle than polyester grp resin........
so hopefully the company will be able to give me some hints as to what is wrong with the stuff when I phone them tomorrow....don't know what's wrong with it though.......not the norm as far as I know from past experience.
but at least I managed to get all the kick boards fitted this afternoon...which, after the disappointment of the moulds and resin cheered me up a little ..ggrrrrrr
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