Need some help/advice

Hello, i am looking for a bit of advice regarding a project of mine that i have been doing, it didn’t work out as planned.


I am building a mould for a center console for a boat. I am a qualified boat builder, i also did 18months of plug/mould development but that was 12 years ago, so i am rusty to say the least.


I built the plug in January, duratec’d it sanded it up to 1200g , (had a couple of small sand through patches but nothing massive) polished it then waxed it.


For the waxing i first used miracle gloss mould release wax( a hard wax)wiping on then wiping off 4 times. I repeated this 3 times.

I then used CR1 easy lease chemical release agent wiping it on, waiting a bit then wiping it off 3 times.

I repeated this 6 times.


I then painted it with tooling gel, thin skinned it then layed up the rest of the mould.


I stored the unreleased mould at a boat yard , covered for 5 months where the bottom got wet (had no option to release it sooner).


First i released the hatch which come off nicely, only sticking in one little spot, this was stored inside.

I then went to release the main mould and the flange immediately broke off as the mdf was rotten.

I noticed that the tooling gel had stuck to the pattern coat in a couple of spots around the flange.


I then tried to float the plug out of the mould, got some really good cracks but wouldn’t budge.


I ended up breaking the plug apart and saw that there was quite a few areas where the tooling gel was stuck to the pattern coat. Ill try add some photos.


I am basically looking for any advice or ideas on why this happened. Was the combination of the waxes wrong, was the finish not good enough, sanded through areas (it didn’t necessarily stick in these parts) anything to help me understand would be great.


My plan from here is to, cut the rest of the mdf away with a blade, sand the pattern coat down with 240g back up to 1200g, polish, wax with just easy lease, probably 10 times, spray it with pva, pull a article off to be sure, then repeat and pull another plug off.


Any additional help and advice would be greatly appreciated on this part as well. Im sort of in a pickle.


Thanks for your time, Alistair

 

Welcome to the Forum Alistair.

That's a tough timeline to follow.
Sounds like building a new mold may be in order, no?

 

@ondarvr is one of a few experts on all things such as these

Reading the easy lease tds, it says not compatible with wax and all waxes must be solvent removed; it also discusses evaporation...

 

All mold release products work if the directions are followed as written.

There are many composite forums and FB user groups where people ask how to wax a mold or apply a semi permanent release agent. People respond with all these generic "I've done it this way for 40 years with every wax", and only this one wax works. Well, if they actually followed the directions on the can they all work. And those directions can be different from one product to the next, even within the same brand and product line.

Now you may prefer one mold release product over another for specific applications, but having a part stick means something was done wrong.

It's best to not mix and match waxes with semi permanent release agents, although using wax over a semi permanent is OK most of the time if required for the specific situation.

I tested many waxes and semi permanent release agents using both good and poor techniques, what I found was that every one of them worked quite well when you followed the directions, go figure.

Sorry for the rant, but it's a pet peeve of mine.