Dedicated casting/moldmaking forum?

I'm a casting/moldmaking geek. It seems like there's enough other folk that we can use a casting/moldmaking forum to talk shop. And we can maybe do a design for a RepRap-designed PourStrap CNC/RepRap machine. Make the molds from laser-cut acrylic and other parts. Right now I don't even have napkin sketchs of such a thing, but I think we could use a dedicated forum and build up a good casting moldmaking tutorial on the wiki. Or figure out how home user/builders can pour one mendel a day.

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What do you guys think? Should we create a new forum?

yepp.

Here's more motivation for "PourBot".
[www.bg-cnc.com]

We'll piss off the world's UPS drivers and postmen, but it will be worth it. Or we can just shuttle around cutting diagrams for cnc-routers, laser cutters, tablesaws, and so on.

Sebastien - Do set up the forum. Just think being to create the molds needed to cast all the parts for a mendel in one afternoon using a "Gingery Foundry".
[www.lindsaybks.com]

It makes the process ten times faster.

Bob Teeter

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Bob Teeter
"What Box?"

Hai
For years we have been making parts from one of masters and it is the best way to go if you need multiple parts that are uniform..
For making the master you can use RP to make the first component or use any materials like HIPS, wood, MDF or aluminium or wax by traditional means.
Once the master pattern is done and finished then based on design and undercuts one can decide the molds- made out of RTV, PU or Epoxy as the tooling materials.
Components are made by slush or pour casting or by spin casting.
To make parts several variety of choices are there from metal to plastics and one can tailor runs from 20-200 depending on what quality molds are and what types of materials is cast.

This is just the basics and may be I will illustrate with illustrative examples
JAGS

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JAGS
DESIGN FOR A CHANGE!

so, why arent people churning out thousands of mendel sets yet?
is there any perticular reason or are people just not doing it...

It has a lot to do with the tooling costs that are determining multiplication.
For making every set you need a set or one mold and the cumulative cost of the molds will get into break-even only if a min of 10 sets are made. if one were to get a 10 sets customer base then this can happen..
Also all the RP components are to be finished very well.. Undercuts needs to be analysed including design of cores.. all this makes it a technical mold making exercise not everyone's cup of tea. Best is if cumulative order sets are gathered at one single location availability of components at reasonable level becomes easier.
Also the mold making takes a pretty decent time and as number of components are numbering more than 50 odd or so making 50 odd molds is going to be one job and as they complete the sets become complete..we have almost done around 35 odd molds and balance more to go..because one of the educational designer institute needed some models for students to explore..
Thanks
JAGS

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JAGS
DESIGN FOR A CHANGE!

Further to my discussion about doing by the RTV molds and epoxy molds for components -I am providing some pictures that may help understand the process and constraints.
Like i said here is a case study that has a RP part, its RTV mold in open cast style and parts made from assorted materials. Please note the pieces are given as is basis -cast parts with no finishing operation done on them.
http://www.orchidsasia.com/jags/rp/100_9156.JPG

RP component original

http://www.orchidsasia.com/jags/rp/100_9146.JPG

The RTV Mould

http://www.orchidsasia.com/jags/rp/100_9149.JPG

The cast component in filled resin.

http://www.orchidsasia.com/jags/rp/100_9155.JPG

Here in this picture you can see on the left are the original RP component and on the right side the cast pieces in alu-epoxy and filled resin -red color.

This gives an idea of the process and finished pieces.
One has to also keep in mind the different shrinkage allowances needed for different end raw materials.

More on Mendel parts as we finish all the molds.
JAGS

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2010 12:38PM by JAGS.

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JAGS
DESIGN FOR A CHANGE!

A small start has been made about a year ago with a dedictated moldmaking forum see [aldaxmoulds.freeforums.org] Stan

anyone have a siemens softhware nx8 for mold design

We are making our parts in resin check this out: [www.youtube.com]
It is not very hard to do. I will post more videos on how to make silicone molds.
Our printers work very well with polyurethane resin pieces.They do not melt like PLA parts do and are much easy to be reproduced then cnc parts.
We played with universal silicone to : [www.youtube.com]
If you want to see more of our experience with molds subscribe to our youtube channel because we will post more videos in the near future.