IG@gbrettin:
Most all area are coming out great. Only a few touch up areas are needed. Tooling gel is incredibly hard. I've been at this with 60grit and changing the sanding pad many times. Moral of the story? Do your mould correct the first time. If you can't... Then you can repair with many hours of sanding. Many hours.. many many...
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All this time sanding gives me time to reflect how I would do the moulding process. Doing it again, I would start it off like this:
These steps were fine: flange construction, clay, Partel Wax and PVA.
Corrective steps:
Tooling gel coats (Weekend process):
1. In the AM. Apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (Orange or Red)
2. In the Evening. Apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (Orange or Red)
3. Next day. In the AM apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (black)
4. Afternoon - 2 layers of fiberglass (lighter fiberglass) using tooling polyester resin (2gal)
Next Weekend
5. 4 layers of heavy fiberglass. using tooling polyester resin (4gal)
6. Next day same as step 5.
Couple days later
7. evaluate for additional layers or pop mould.
I think that would yield the perfect mould or atleast have minimal repair.
This pictures below are about 6 hours of sanding. You may have asked yourself why I didn't start over? I have hundreds of dollars into the mould materials. Each tooling polyester gallon is about 40 dollars. I have about 7 gallons on my hood mould. Tooling gel costs about the same. Good fiberglass is about 4 dollars a yard. I used about 15yds (guessing). And so on. SO there is the cost but also the time of setup. Most importantly, I think it's worthwhile to fix the mould and show everyone the long road if you're new at something.
Thanks for watching my crazy build process so far.
