Making a Mold of a 3D Printed Part- Carbon Fiber Air Box Lid Project part 3 

One of the bits edited out from the final cut but probably should have left was why I made the mold with epoxy and carbon. I have so much epoxy on hand, where as if I bought enough poly resin, I'd have to buy more than enough (nothing worse than running out before finishing the project) the leftover would spoil before I make another mold most likely. This makes the epoxy, in my case, effectively cheaper than poly. The small strips or patches of carbon are just off cuts from other parts that would either go in the trash or sit around forever. So I can look at the carbon as basically "free". So I'm in a weird boat where an epoxy mold is cheaper for me than a polyester mold for a mold this size. Now a larger mold, it would lean back toward poly and fiberglass being cheaper.

Just got a 3D printer, very happy to come across this video!

I have been battling to make a mould, and this video really put some prospective on the process. Thanks for making this video 👍

J'adore ton travail sur la pièce....super

Glad to see the OG TFR shirts still showing up in a lot of your videos and good to see you’re still going strong. Love the channel!

So I know this is a year old and you probably learn this by now but I saw you sanded the hot glue. If you put isopropyl alcohol on hot glue, it immediately releases. It just no longer sticks to whatever it's on. So you can perfectly take off the hot glue I just spreading some IPA on it and rubbing it with a rag or whatever and then grab the edge of the hot glue and pull up or in this case push off all your little glue tacks. So you can use hot glue on what will be final surfaces and then take it off perfectly.

I just mad large fg mold from large pla 3d print (12 elements adding to over one meter). PLA is not suitable due to huge CET (expansion) and low heat deflection. Gelcoat and barier/coupling don`t generate much heat but these new no shrink tooling resin needs to be applied at at least four layers 450g. It need a little heat from exothermic reaction to activate non shrinking additives and cur properly (than it change color). My pla model expanded so much it warped mold, despite gelcoat and coupling coat was cured and stiff. Barley saved it. Perhaps PETG will be enough due to higher heat deflection, but still CET is high, so don`t go crazy with size and put veil layer for stability.

Another method you could do is get an old wood burner and melt the pieces of the print together in 1 piece, and if needed, use scrap pieces of filament as filler to fill in gaps. *EDIT* But be careful it is easy to melt through whatever you are trying to melt together so test on something first to get the hang of it

What 3D printer are you using these days? I've got a Kobra 2 Max, and printing these larger parts has been super helpful with its massive print volume. AND HELLA FAST!

Hi ,Peter from South Africa,your cutting table is it glass

top job

Since you have a 3D model already, you might consider also printing the mold flange. Just something I've been pondering lately. 'twould save a little time. Glad to see you keep having new content. Keep it up, AJ. Jim

This video series got me to buy a POP2.

Nice :) I did comment last time it would be better to make a mould out of Fusion 360. Use CA glue instead of hotglue. But overall nice experience and could be improved :) Also check Voron Design and maybe build the biggest printer for ABS. With ABS printed parts sometimes you don't even have to go with CF. :)

Hay man you haven't be coming up in my deed any more so went to look for you and I almost had to tipe in your whole name to get you to pop up so I don't normally do this but I turn on the bell.. I'm making a roof for a new edge mustang right now. Do you spray jell coat in you mold before you lay the part up to get a better finish?

Hey just confused, why do you clay the edges? Wouldn't that result in the edges getting/splaying outwards instead of straight down? Just confused, thanks!

Why a CF mould over a fiberglass ? isn't it more expensive? Keep it up, all the best. 👌 love the channel and the workshop in particular.

What nozzle and pressure do you spray the duratec primer with? Also, do you thin it before spraying? Thanks :-)

What kind of Gelcoat do you use that allows you to apply it so thick without wrinkling (alligatoring)?

Do you save your plug for making a new mold or do you can it? How many parts can you make out of a mold?

Hmmm, I did not know you could make molds from carbon fiber for carbon fiber parts. I always thought carbon fiber layup needed fiberglass molds. Is there any reason why most molds are made of fiber glass?

What tooling gelcoat do you use? Do you have compatibility issues if you use a poly based gelcoat with epoxy resin?

Why didn't you take the J clip off, put the blue top part where it should be, mark a new hole on the lower tab, drill it and put the J clip back, pushed right up so all the holes line up?

Can I ask what gelcoat that is AJ?

Where is part 2?

I really don't get why you didn't printed your part(s) thick enough instead of so thin and then spend hours to make it thicker with carbon !