Has anyone done a low cost mold of their latest or best board to try to save the shape for foam blow or? I've just completed the latest new and improved 9' beefy model and would like to save the form so I started a paper mache mold, not so great a method, takes a long tedious time, must wait for lams to dry and the worst is that the paper shrinks bad over the concaves so a mold result won't show concaves, paper mache isn't being so good. An epoxy glass mold would be very expensive probably using 2+ gals of resin, polyester resin would foul the apartment niehgborhood so bad the EPA would show up. Any ideas or experience?? Thanks
Have your board scanned somewhere and keep the file in your safe.
Howzit GTFD, Molds are expensive no matter what they are made of,just do what balsa suggests. Aloha,Kokua
plaster molds are cheap
but heavy 
Oh yeah, I believe concrete molds are good for blowing foam.
I wouldn’t spend my time and money on it. Listen to balsa and kokua
I dont know about making a 9' paper mache mold ???
Theres probably lots of ways but depending upon your requirements you could do it like this....
Wrap your board in several layers of cling film ( Glad Wrap) or cut up polyethylene bags and tape them to the board.
Do a few layers of paper mache including a series if raised spines along and across the mold.
And then put a coat of any resin over the lot. On just one side of the board.
The resin will soak in to the paper, the paper will set like wood and the raised parts will provide some structural strength.
Maybe do it a few times to build up the longitudinal strength. Paper, resin, paper, resin. But it would make a cheap, light, stable mold.
All sorts of variables to try.. maybe resin some light wooden battens of plywood or thick cardboard along and across for extra stability.
Anythings got to be better than paper but papers made of wood so its a good base.
When youve done your best the whole thing should just lift off because of the plastic film.
You could make that mold for the cost of the resin and find the rest of the ingredients.
I’m curious to know how you would fill the mold once you made it
I’m curious to know how you would fill the mold once you made it
First.. spray down some mold release then...
1/. vac bag layers of 4oz and 1/2 corecell / build up and shape down.
or
2/. 2X 6oz / glass on stringers to the inside/ hand pour foam to overfill / shape and glass the deck.
or
3/. 2X 6oz/ hand pour foam / lay internal horizontal 'springer'/ foam over top / shape.
or
4/. 2 X 6 oz and then mix up any resinous slurry of foam dust to create your own internal core/ overfill/ shape and glass.
I wonder if you could make a fiberglass/epoxy mold a bit cheaper than what you originally thought.
What if you just used one or two layers of 4oz glass just to make a thin shell. Then you could make a cheap plywood frame to suspend that shell in. Maybe even fill that frame with sand for additional support. The shell might be kind of flimsy on its own but once you support it with something I would think it would be plenty strong. It doesn't seem to me that you would need gallons of resin to acomplish that.
Surffoils, your answers intrigue me.
I've given alot of thought to pour foam but I've gotten so much dicouragement that I kind of gave up on the idea. Have you had success with it?
I've never heard of corecell before so I did a search. Sounds like good stuff but I can't find anyplace to buy it in New York. Any ideas? Anyone?
Also, regarding "any resinous slurry of foam dust" how would you go about that? I mean I get the foam dust part but how would you make the slurry? Would you use fiberglass resin? That seems like it would be hell to shape once it cured and probably weigh a ton. I'm wondering if you've ever done this or if it was just a passing thought.
Thanks for any feedback and sorry if this boarders on a threadjack.
Good to keep it going squalyboy. I just tried to post an update on my paper mache labor but the connection dropped so I 'll try another time.
You guys should try talking to people that actually make and use molds. Almost all the FRP industry uses molds, so there's plenty of them out there. Boats and boat parts, automotive stuff, aircraft, shower stalls, jacuzzis, etc. Male lay-up stuff like surfboards is the oddity.
Hey GTFD,
Unless you actually gonna find a way to make blanks out of that mold and glass them traditinally,
you will end up with a different board.
look at the tuflites, they are super accurate copies of the best shapes done by the best craftsmen and
yet they ride differently and behave totaly different due to their construction.
so if your intentions are to replicate a good board you made.. I think Balsa provided you the best and cheapest way to go.
good luck anyway,
Lee
Yeah, Balsa has definitely put forth the most intelligent solution so far. I have made many molds from many things for many different materials, and although it certainly is possible to make a stable and useable mold that size, it would be very difficult, time consuming, and ultimately cost a fortune in materials and do-overs for the first-timer.
That being said, I shaped a snow ski pattern out of wood a while back while living up north. I waxed it, brushed on multiple layers of silicone, and backed it all up with jute filled hydrocal (hard plaster) and an electrical conduit backbone . . . The mold itself looked like a train wreck, but the flanged silicone liner was perfect and took to hand layup like a champ. I made some hollow fiberglass shells with a wood stringer and poured some dense urethane foam in the open-faced molds from Smooth-on. What an incredible mess! Never got around to finishing those before moving down south.
Since then, I thought that if I ever had to make a mold that size or larger, I would take the part to a place that does ‘foam in place packaging’ or get my pattern and reinforcements ready and call someone who sprays insulation foam. Basically constructing a two piece inverted surfboard. Glass the foam void and bring it back to the same person to fill with foam . . .
Just a thought, but probably doable with enough forethought applied. Who knows . …
[quote="$1"]
I've given alot of thought to pour foam but I've gotten so much dicouragement that I kind of gave up on the idea. Have you had success with it?
I've never heard of corecell before so I did a search. Sounds like good stuff but I can't find anyplace to buy it in New York. Any ideas? Anyone?
Also, regarding "any resinous slurry of foam dust" how would you go about that? I mean I get the foam dust part but how would you make the slurry? Would you use fiberglass resin? That seems like it would be hell to shape once it cured and probably weigh a ton. I'm wondering if you've ever done this or if it was just a passing thought.
[/quote]
Pour foam is similar to spray insulation foam, in Oz its just a pack polyeurathane, some are high density, some are low, but none of them ( as others have said) will accurately copy the feel of a professionally made blank.
But maybe youre just after something different, in which case, take your pick of ideas and give them a whirl.
My idea of using corecell is just a variation on 'vac-bagging with a rocker board' buit instead, using the hull mold as the base. www.compsand .com will have all the info on that.
The idea of making a slurry was a thought of recycling bits and pieces, I havent tried it yet, but there might be a way to heat form offcuts together or spray foam dust with a light glue and then pressurise them into a blank mold, but each step is fraught with high costs and unknown results and time consuming.
Some times its just easier, quicker and cheaper to buy a blank.
But if youre a creative guy, anything is possible.
Why?????? Coming from a proffesional tooling and model builder. Let it go. Love it, abuse it and let it go. Embrase the new-ness in new. Enjoy the topic though because it give such a broad range of perspective to the mind set of creative people. I have seen natives chew roots mixed with sand and spit them on patterns they have coated in animal fat then melt ore and pour in like sand casting molds all the way up to NC milling machines milling molds to model city buses. Copying a board, scan it with your local portable scanner guy. Hey check it out the other day my little boy was bored so we made a bondo mold off one of his GI Joe pistols then made a bondo part and painted it. His first tooling project. Fun, Cheap, and he will never forget it.
The paper mache portion of the job is about complete, triangle cardboard stiffeners are glued on and papered around the perimeter of both sides about 2 inches in from the rail. this has left a dish or bowl like appearance to the top and bottom of the board and invites some kind of sandwich core fill with an exterior skin to be a good planar composite sandwich, very stiff. The rails outside the triangle stiffeners and out to the mold separation flanges will need a different treatment. Paper mache against the board is probably not the way to go, we'll see when the molds come off.
Howzit GTFD, The fun always starts whe you pull a mold off a plug. I used to make molds for hollow boards that were honey combboards and we would do a cherry gloss and double polish the boards then use mold release and there would still be parts that tore a little of the plug off and stuck to the mold. Be sure to take some pics of it and post them, moldmakig is not easy.Aloha,Kokua
But…the advise that is being deamed up, is from folks that have never seen or been near a foaming opperation.
I loaned several of my bar clamps to Pacifica Foam during the initial attempts to blow foam, the clamps were to keep the CONCRETE molds closed, my clamps came back in the shape of the letter “C”, I’m not kidding.
Foam blown against a smooth mold inner shell, with no way of venting off the gasses with be nothing but swiss cheese in structure, this is the reason for the crepe style of release paper that goes between the liquid foam and the mold.
The foam is not just poured into the mold and closed, it is poured in a pattern as to where the most is needed and how much will migrate to the nose and tail, the molds are always deck down for this reason.
The pourers use card stock to gently move the liquid foam around to evenly distribute throughout the open mold, the mold MUST be pre-heated and have heating tubes built into the shells.
Is there a reason that almost none of the start up foaming attempts are still in business, even with each of them hiring the best that were the heart of Clark’s crew ?
The stab at trying does not even in the wildest of dreams come anywhere near enough to justify the labor and money that a backyard or even pro’s with a chemistry background can offer.
Do what is suggested, get the board scanned, it is a damn better way to spend that hard earned money
praise be
to J.t G.
short
succint
stone tablets
from the mount…
making the mold of
the latest phallus
a great excercise
but for success
the freeway on ramp
it is not but a great art project
and worthy of museum space
and little else…spray paint it
and photograph it in an urban alley
preferably in new york
next sell it to a
warhol clone for an east hampton
beach party buffet table
perhaps
12,000$ go to france for the fall
give $8000 to balsa for a room and a board.
…ambrose…
ah but to dream…
Sure you'll never make a hi quality blank but you can make a useful blank with free pour (no pressure) foam.
This mold cost $0
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/dec31002.jpg[/IMG]
Just masonite and off cuts, lined with polyethylene film.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/dec31001.jpg[/IMG]
and I made 6 blanks to experiment with.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/JAN19001-1.jpg[/IMG]
Not perfect but possible if you accept the limitations.
And certainly not as good as the blanks I made for 3 years working at Surfblanks with Midget.