Help - I received MicroMark's CR-600 resin for Christmas and am trying to use it - with NO success.
I am trying to duplicate the front wheel of a Sdk 251. I have made a mold using RTV and there is no problem there. I made a two part mold with 3 vent holes and a main pouring hole.
I mix the resin 1:1 as instructed and pour it in the mold. I have done this twice and both times I have waited 24 hours before de-molding. Both time the resin has hardened only about 1/3 of the way down the main pour hole. Liquid resin remains in the rest of the mold. I've done the whole tap the mold get rid of air bubbles, pour slowly and at an angle...

Has any one used this product? Is there anything you see I'm doing wrong..

ive had some similar problems using Alumilite. I found the the "dark" stuff needs to be SHAKEN WELL before mixing. and mix as long as possible.

I've used that type of resin, plus the faster CR-300, in both one and two part moulds with no problems. Are you mixing the two parts thorourghly before pouring? In the CR-600 batch I have both parts are perfectly clear so it wasn't easy to tell, easier with the CR-300 though as one part is coloured.

the not mixing enough turned out to be my problem!!

Scott,
I don't know how much resin you're going to mix, but to do up to 20cc of resin this is what I do:
- shake throughly the A and B components bottles
- pour some component A in a cup and some component B in another cup
- get a sirynge big enough to accept the quantity of resin you have to prepare take apart the needle and put it aside
- get the right quantity of component A from the relevant cup
- "suck" a bit of air just to clean the needle fitting tubing
- clean it very well with a piece of kitchen roll, a tissue, ecc.
- get the right quantity of component B from the relevant cup
- shake it like mad and let it rest for a minute or so (closing the needle fitting tubing)
- put a neddle with internal diameter of 1 or 1.2 mm on the needle fitting tubing of the sirynge
- pour your resin gently in the mould
In this way I get very good and "consistent" results...
Ciao


P.S.: could it be a subject for another episode of the for dummies saga?

I think Jan may have done it already

Hey guys - thanks for the feedback. What I'm hearing is that I'm not mixing well enough. I am making sure that I've got equal parts of A & B. I use three cups with measuring tic marks on them and that was equal. I twizzled the two together with a toothpick for a minute, but they are the same color so I can't guarantee they're mixed 100%. I give it a good 45 - 60 seconds of twizzling, but I don't know if that's enough??? I'll clean the mold and give it another well mixed go.


As far as an article - it couldn't hurt, Jan did do a molding one

Hey Scott, you might want to switch from a toothpick to something wider like an wooden coffee stirrer or a popsicle stick. I use the same stuff to mold my parts and have yet to have a problem. Granted, all of my mold are open faced but that shouldn't make a difference.

Marty - good suggestion, the toothpick doesn't provide much 'push'....

Update - I took your suggestions about mixing and mixing and mixing some more and I have good news. I really shook up the A and B part bottles A LOT before even measuring. After I measured I mixed the two parts together A LOT, stirring and swishing the cup around. I used a lot of the work time in just stirring.

The wheel came out great!

Thanks gusy - I'll have my resin well shaken and well stirred.

have you tried viagra? I hear that gets things hard!
sorry couldnt resisit that one #:-) have you tried adding a setting agent to it? I got some resin from a car shop (halfords) and the more of the setting agent you added the quicker it set and hardend although I'm sure I added too much setting agent it might be a route looking at

I just had the privilege of seeing my third live demo of molds and resins by Bob Hayes, who does it for fun. He has two websites bigscalemodelers.com and bigscaledreams.com. Here are some tips. First of all, he had the same problem at one time. He'd make a piece and later, it would droop.
1. He has tried everything on the market and doesn't like the Micro-Mark products (that are made by Smooth On). He uses Alumilite.
2. He will slightly increase the amount of catylst called out for. This also gets you the resin color instead of other wierd colors.
3. He heats his molds on a warming tray at 150 degrees F (not C).
4. He puts the "B" side on ice.
5. He shakes the "B" side before pouring.
6. He'll slowly roll a mold to insure proper filling, or if he uses an air vent, he'll smack it to get the air bubbles out. He'll also squeeze a mold and add more Alumilte as he slowly release the squeeze.
I'm telling you, he has done everything with Alumilite. And since he's retired at 54 and sells what he makes on the Internet while he's having fun, that makes him tons smarter than me.
He can be reached at [email protected] for further questions.
Oh yes, we're trying to get him to join our IPMS chapter, or at least participate in Armorama, although he is a car nut.

Sealhead (Kansas Sunflower)

Viagra would work #:-)

SH - Nice write up. I think I may just have to try Alumilite after this batch of resin is gone.

Mix well. Like in James Bond novels, that would be stirred, not shaken. Shaking the can or bottle is an easy way to get the components well mixed, but it also brings thousands of tiny air bottles in your mixture, that later can mess up the results of your casting.

The mixing is as important for the light component as it is for the dark one. If you don't shake the light component you'll have a good result in the beginning, but in the end you'll have nothing but filler component in your can and things won't works so well anymore. You'd need to throw away the rest of the liquid.

So in one word : MIX !

Hi!, Slodder,
here's another link for resin . I bought their kit and have had good luck
with it. Good luck.

http://www.crystaltower.com/aceresin/