Quote Originally Posted by DGilloon View Post
Thanks for the advice. One of the things that I have learned (and relearned, and relearned) is about the time value of money. I could spend a get deal of time looking for scrap and second hand shops to cobble together something that might or might not work based on some half assed idea I had in order to save a little money. Or I could spend a littler greater amount of money on something that was designed for the job and will work correctly the first time, saving me a greater amount of time. Time is the one asset that you can never recover. Thus I ordered this today.
If you can make it work well for you it is a good thing. We made our own some places I worked so we could look onto the top of a larger part that was lying down. We had HF pots at one place that worked well for end filling molds. If you are just filling an open top mold, then you may wish to place the pot on its side and secure it well. It would be nice to make a hinging system to get the top into place more easily.
We finally bought a bit bigger tanks! 4FT DIAMETER! And a 25 HP vac pump!


If I may pick your brain a bit more Richard, on one of the forums devoted to making props, a poster suggested that in casting small amount as I would be doing with scales, warming your resins and molds would aid in finishing. Was this your practice?
I totally agree with them! it aids the mixing and pour-ability of the resin. And heating the molds in adehydrator will remove any trace of moisture which is often the main cause of bubbles.
Do Not take the resin or molds over 100ºF / 38ºC. That may over cook the reaction of the material.

Another poster contented that you can avoid running into pot time issues by degassing your Part A and Part B separately and then mixing. His view was that this achieved the bulk of that you were trying to accomplish by degassing and you did not start the chemical reaction any earlier that you had to. I would think that mixing would undo most of the degassing and you would have to do it over again anyway, perhaps for a shorter period of time tho. Do you think that this is valid?
In some cases, yes it is valid. If the resin in a container is separately vac'd only one component at a time it may help. If you are in a high humidity environment, it could add moisture you do not want. We had a problem with some resins in Houston!!!!

I would recommend thinking of a vertical easily filled sandwich mold. You could cast many scales at once..however, only one color at a time. A reservoir is a necessity then and filling from bottom to top is required! Yup, there are ways! You will have to go from here. I cannot give all possibilities of thirty years experience to answer for each change in process.
~Richard
HAVE FUN! be safe!