Plastic/Resin Molding Help?

[Alterscape]

I'm interested in learning to resin-mold my own plastic cases for casemods and other hobby electronics projects. I've googled around, but haven't found much in the way of general information -- its mainly companies advertising their own products. Could anyone who's worked with resin-casting point me in the direction of some good books or online resources regarding what you need to get started?

Cheers,
Ryan

 

[dage]

Have you tried checking out a tap plastics or amazon.com for books?

You might want to read through this if you're bored:

http://www.classicgaming.com/2600ce/case/case1.html

adventures in atari portables... I think the guy did some strength testing (like 3' drops) and such which may be relevant to you.

 

[zeusenergy]

I'm interested in learning to resin-mold my own plastic cases for casemods and other hobby electronics projects. I've googled around, but haven't found much in the way of general information -- its mainly companies advertising their own products. Could anyone who's worked with resin-casting point me in the direction of some good books or online resources regarding what you need to get started?

Cheers,
Ryan

I hope you have a bunch of wood carving tools to make molds! Casting is great fun when the product is finally sanded down, deburred, and finished. But trying to get good casting fill will be difficult if you plan to make 3d objects (2-sided mold). I worked for a few plastics manufacturers including the one responsible for making Corvette intake manifolds. Even with millions of dollars of equipment you had to get every process perfect or holes in the product would develop from the plastics not filling the mold properly. Another suggestion is to get some good release compound, you can get it in a can from industrial suppliers online. If you are doing fairly simple one-sided molds than you can make it work easily. Resins are really good for beginners and hobbyists since it tends to have good fill properties. Just experiment and you'll be able to make anything you want. Sorry I don't have any resources for you- only my vague knowledge to share.
But you should find some stuff online if you search for hobby resin.... like this one:
http://www.hobbyengineering.com/SectionBM.html

 

[zeusenergy]

Have you tried checking out a tap plastics or amazon.com for books?

You might want to read through this if you're bored:

http://www.classicgaming.com/2600ce/case/case1.html

adventures in atari portables... I think the guy did some strength testing (like 3' drops) and such which may be relevant to you.

I just noticed that this guy you mention used the same products from the link I posted. Alumilite sounds like the way to go for Alterscape.

 

[Alterscape]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. To answer your questions, yes, I have a decently-stocked wood shop at home, and milling equipment at work, so I'm good to go from that end. I remember looking at Classichandhelds before, but I didn't recall anything in-depth on molding/casting; then again, that was at least a year or two ago.

Thanks again for all the info and time.

Ryan

 

[artificialj]

I'm a sculptor who works in polyester resin (a clear hard plastic resin). It's, unfortunatly, incredibly brittle when cast at low thicknesses, and is rather problematic to cast anything very large as it has high enough exotherm that it will crack itself while curing, so that would probably not be the way to go for this. I've talked to people about cast acrylic, and it sounds like it might not suffer from the same problems, but I unfortunatly have no actual experience with it to talk from.