The handle is glued in place, gutter key is as well, and the walls are glued to the base.
Well, the second part of the handle is finally molded. This pic shows the gutter key (wood) around the handle, about an 1/8", the retaining walls, and the "tear strip"
A close up shot of the handle prepped for molding. You can see how I got around my potential problem of the "retaining points" (the raised areas that fit into the other side of the handle) I built a box around them so the mold would be flush with the outside of the main portion of the handle.
An even better close up showing the "box".
The silicone was degassed and poured in, nothing unusual there really.
The fiberglass shell is nearly done. The "mud" coat was applied
first. It's a mixture of baby powder, glass microspheres, and polyester
resin mixed to a "cold honey" feel and applied over the silicone,
that's followed by 3 layers of fiberglass matte at stress points and 2
over the rest of the surface. I tinted those layers green just because
I could.
OK, the fiberglass was trimmed, once again, a little on the sloppy side. I used an x-acto knife when the resin is "just right" and got a fairly clean cut, I think I waited a minute too long again. The "box" has been removed in this picture and vents superglued in place. The silicone key you see there is the pry point, and will remain there until the other half of the silicone shell is finished.
A close up of the open mold. You can see the vents as well as the tabs that will hold the halves together and where the "box" did it's job keeping the silicone flush with the outside of the handle.
The other side is under silicone now. I added a 1/2" tall styrene
retaining walls around the silicone, sealed with hot melt glue, applied
Vaseline to the silicone, and poured it up, same process as before. Tomorrow
when it's cured I'll spray PVA separator film on the fiberglass after
removing the retaining walls and applying hot melt glue to the vents.
The glue lets me keep those areas open to the air instead of having
to trim the support shell to do that. The vents also let me inject
resin into the closed mold. After the PVA dries I'll finish the
fiberglass support shell and open it up, so check back.
The last, and largest pain is up after that. The barrel. If you stop back in a few days you'll hear (or read) all about the problems that will arise.
OK, the retaining walls have been removed, hot glue applied over the vent holes and we're ready to spray on the PVA.
The PVA has been sprayed on and allowed to dry. It's now time to fiberglass this side.
"MUD" coat, followed by two layers of matte have been applied and are setting up.
The fiberglass shell's been trimmed down, the glue popped out and that
section has been trimmed. The holes to bolt it together were drilled
before the halves were pried apart.
The "top" side of the mold showing vent/fill holes and access to them through the fiberglass.
The bottom of the mold. Since this side was so deep I drilled a hole which I can shoot compressed air into to remove the silicone if I need to.
The open mold.
The plug side of the silicone from above.
The plug from a different angle.
This just kills me. I can't believe it happened, but somehow a little bit of silicone seeped around and bonded to the first pour. I just can NOT believe it. Not sure what I'm going to do with this yet, anyone want a mold?