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my first mold story;
i'll eventually get videos posted
Part 1, Putting it Together (ThePuzzle)
First off, the 'building' part is EASY, kind of like a beginner puzzle
the Mag Catch piece is the only piece that actually must be oriented a particular way, it can be reversed (if it is reversed the mag body doesnt fit properly)
The Piece/pin that creates the Bolt catch pin hole needs a bit of adjustment when inserting, but thats easy to do with a finger or a flat tip screw driver
I assembled most of the held in place pieces in 1 side of the mold, making it the 'top' since nothing fell out when turning that side over, (there are many combination of installing you can do, again its like putting together a puzzle)
The parts that fall out; (buffer tube plug, which creates the threads for the buffer tube and the buffer tube detent pin hole, grip screw and the bottom pin (puts a hole in the trigger guard) I placed in the other side, making it the 'bottom', this way when I sandwich the halves, I simply turn the 'top' side down, line it up and press it down, it is mostly a smooth motion. the side pins, you can put in before or after mating the halves.
Time Spent: 5 minutes
Part 2, Molding
Being the first time, I felt rushed, must be due to starting a timer, this is why I dont have a video for that part, yet..
so, I put the cans in the sink of hot water for around 5 minutes, marked my cups A=4 and B=2 (just to mark the parts and amounts), Poured A Mixture into the cup, then B Mixture into its cup, added the chosen color mixture to cup B and mixed for the 90 seconds. poured A into B, mixed for another 90 seconds. Now I set the mold into a bucket in the sink, and commenced to pouring, I poured a bit, then tilted and twisted the mold, to help rid it of air bubbles, repeating this sequence a few times, pour/tilit/pour/tilt, once filled to the rim, i tried inserting the plug, it wasnt very cooperative, finally it suddenly pressed in, and as a result squirted a bunch of resin out of the buffer plug area. I'll find out later what this resulted in. so, I wait my 70-80 minutes, and go to DeMold
Time Spent: less than 10 minutes
Part 3, Breaking the Mold (DeMold)
OK, I removed the pins and bolts, then pried with the flat bladed screwdriver, used a second flat blade to help out a bit, once its apart a bit, it is real easy to get 'a' side off. once one side is removed, you can see what you've created, then the task is removing the lower from the other half of the mold, this wasn't quite as easy, the pry locations were filled with resin, so I first had to dig out the resin to even get near the ability to pry, knowing this now, in the future I will fill the pry spots with silicon to keep them free from the resin, silicon is much easier to remove than the resin I'm guessing, once I was able to access the pry slots, it took some pressure but I was able to pry the lower from the other half of the mold. While I'm figuring this out, I'm also removing the excess resin from the edges where I can. At this point all of the little puzzle pieces have to be removed from the lower. So, now I'm looking to see what may be the easiest thing to remove first, I figure the grip screw, i had to put quite a bit of torque on that to break it lose, and considering that, it also cracked that immediate area, to help remedy this, next time I will coat grip screw with vaseline before the mold, or maybe thread tape or wax, something, not sure yet. Continuing on, I move on with removing more of the puzzle pieces, took a hammer and gave a slight tap to the pin that creates the rear take down pin hole, driving it out a bit then grabbed it with fingers to pull it out rest of the way, next I moved to remove the pin that creates the buffer tube retaining pin hole, that wasn't budging, so I decided to come back to that later. Moving along, I'm scraping some of the excess resin off the edges and seeing if any of the pieces just happen to fall out for me, no luck, nothing fell, next was the little pieces for the bolt catch area and the mag release, didn't have a paperclip, so grabbed a thin key ring, threaded it through the little square and pulled that piece right out fairly easily once I was able to get grab the little metal with a decent bite. now I looked more at what to pull next, realizing that pin was still there from the bolt catch, figured I should get that out, so I kind of dug out the resin around the bolt catch pin hole to remove that pin, got to where i could see the pin, and tapped it out a bit with the tip of a screwdriver, then pulled it out the rest of the way with some pliers, now I pressed on the pin through the magwell and pushed it out enough to grab with pliers, and pulled it out easily, next the magwell, it took some downward force with thumbs but eventually pushed out enough to pull out from the bottom, now I think all that's left is the buffer tube insert/plug and the trigger pocket insert, that buffer tube insert was not easy, I felt I was getting nowhere for a while, finally that comes out, I will certainly put vaseline on that pin next time, hopefully that helps, now unscrew the buffer thread insert and remove that. now the trigger pocket, I inserted the screw into the trigger guard, and put it against the insert, kind of tapped it a bit with a hammer, nothing, hmm, ok, finally, using a bit of effort and actually hit it with the hammer, and it pushed it right out enough to grab it and pull it out the rest of the way ny hand, ok, now all the puzzle pieces are out.
Time Spent: less than 10 minutes
Part 4, Clean up
well, considering I was removing excess resin along the way, not a lot left, just a bit of scraping here and there and it was all cleaned off, I did find along the way where I screwed up. Ok, remember back in the beginning I mentioned that when plugging the mold, the plug suddenly went in, and gushed out some resin pour from the buffer tube area, well, that created an air bubble right there at the buffer tube area, so, next time i will be certain to not do that, we know air bubbles are bad, and that sudden squirt/gush upon the plug going in abruptly caused that
Cleanup of the mold itself, after all that to me was surpirsingly easy, at most scraping with a flat tip screwdriver, cleaned up quite well in only a few minutes with minimal effort
I'm happy to answer any questions, after converting my videos i will post them, they were done with an iPad so are very large and wont upload directly.
Time Spent: less than 5 minutes
Notes to self:
I will coat some of the pins and grip screw with vaseline, hopefully to aid in removal, be more careful with inserting the fill plug, and put some silicon in the pry points on the magwell insert to aid in removal
TOTAL TIME SPENT: less than 1 Hour 45 minutes, INCLUDING the 70 minute wait time for curing
heres the mold pieces and the result
the kit is $329.99
with the kit you get a 5 pour kit, good for 5 of course
the pour kit can be purchased alone as a 5 pour recharge kit and is $119, you can also get 10 and 15 pour recharge kits
the natural resin color is white'ish, most will want the color kit which is $74.95 which is 8 'basic' colors from which you can make any color you want really, the color shown above is sort of plum, using 7 drops red, 2 drops orange, 1 drop black.
so, with those prices, the mold itself, after reducing the cost of the 5xPour kit would be about 210 bucks, the mold seems quite durable and should last 100s of pours before any thought of replacing, my EZJig plus bits cost me 210, and the endmill needs replacing every so often at about 30 bucks per. oh, my router cost 100, my drill press was 130
so, my startup cost for my first Aluminum 80% lower was
$45 TM anodized
$200 EZ Jig + bits
$130 Drill Press
$100 Router
$475 TOTAL
about 5 hours time
My startup cost for my first Molded Lower was
$404 with the 8-color color pack
$404 TOTAL
about an hour time
4 additional lowers FREE
ALL future lowers will be less than $25 each, whatever color I want
of course there is the possiblilyt of needing to replace something, but even then, averaging cost per lower wont go very high, the first 5 being about 80 bucks each, after i do 10, my cost each will have been $53~, it only goes down from there
these are just some pros
cons, i'm not sure yet, time will tell
i'll eventually get videos posted
Part 1, Putting it Together (ThePuzzle)
First off, the 'building' part is EASY, kind of like a beginner puzzle
the Mag Catch piece is the only piece that actually must be oriented a particular way, it can be reversed (if it is reversed the mag body doesnt fit properly)
The Piece/pin that creates the Bolt catch pin hole needs a bit of adjustment when inserting, but thats easy to do with a finger or a flat tip screw driver
I assembled most of the held in place pieces in 1 side of the mold, making it the 'top' since nothing fell out when turning that side over, (there are many combination of installing you can do, again its like putting together a puzzle)
The parts that fall out; (buffer tube plug, which creates the threads for the buffer tube and the buffer tube detent pin hole, grip screw and the bottom pin (puts a hole in the trigger guard) I placed in the other side, making it the 'bottom', this way when I sandwich the halves, I simply turn the 'top' side down, line it up and press it down, it is mostly a smooth motion. the side pins, you can put in before or after mating the halves.
Time Spent: 5 minutes
Part 2, Molding
Being the first time, I felt rushed, must be due to starting a timer, this is why I dont have a video for that part, yet..
so, I put the cans in the sink of hot water for around 5 minutes, marked my cups A=4 and B=2 (just to mark the parts and amounts), Poured A Mixture into the cup, then B Mixture into its cup, added the chosen color mixture to cup B and mixed for the 90 seconds. poured A into B, mixed for another 90 seconds. Now I set the mold into a bucket in the sink, and commenced to pouring, I poured a bit, then tilted and twisted the mold, to help rid it of air bubbles, repeating this sequence a few times, pour/tilit/pour/tilt, once filled to the rim, i tried inserting the plug, it wasnt very cooperative, finally it suddenly pressed in, and as a result squirted a bunch of resin out of the buffer plug area. I'll find out later what this resulted in. so, I wait my 70-80 minutes, and go to DeMold
Time Spent: less than 10 minutes
Part 3, Breaking the Mold (DeMold)
OK, I removed the pins and bolts, then pried with the flat bladed screwdriver, used a second flat blade to help out a bit, once its apart a bit, it is real easy to get 'a' side off. once one side is removed, you can see what you've created, then the task is removing the lower from the other half of the mold, this wasn't quite as easy, the pry locations were filled with resin, so I first had to dig out the resin to even get near the ability to pry, knowing this now, in the future I will fill the pry spots with silicon to keep them free from the resin, silicon is much easier to remove than the resin I'm guessing, once I was able to access the pry slots, it took some pressure but I was able to pry the lower from the other half of the mold. While I'm figuring this out, I'm also removing the excess resin from the edges where I can. At this point all of the little puzzle pieces have to be removed from the lower. So, now I'm looking to see what may be the easiest thing to remove first, I figure the grip screw, i had to put quite a bit of torque on that to break it lose, and considering that, it also cracked that immediate area, to help remedy this, next time I will coat grip screw with vaseline before the mold, or maybe thread tape or wax, something, not sure yet. Continuing on, I move on with removing more of the puzzle pieces, took a hammer and gave a slight tap to the pin that creates the rear take down pin hole, driving it out a bit then grabbed it with fingers to pull it out rest of the way, next I moved to remove the pin that creates the buffer tube retaining pin hole, that wasn't budging, so I decided to come back to that later. Moving along, I'm scraping some of the excess resin off the edges and seeing if any of the pieces just happen to fall out for me, no luck, nothing fell, next was the little pieces for the bolt catch area and the mag release, didn't have a paperclip, so grabbed a thin key ring, threaded it through the little square and pulled that piece right out fairly easily once I was able to get grab the little metal with a decent bite. now I looked more at what to pull next, realizing that pin was still there from the bolt catch, figured I should get that out, so I kind of dug out the resin around the bolt catch pin hole to remove that pin, got to where i could see the pin, and tapped it out a bit with the tip of a screwdriver, then pulled it out the rest of the way with some pliers, now I pressed on the pin through the magwell and pushed it out enough to grab with pliers, and pulled it out easily, next the magwell, it took some downward force with thumbs but eventually pushed out enough to pull out from the bottom, now I think all that's left is the buffer tube insert/plug and the trigger pocket insert, that buffer tube insert was not easy, I felt I was getting nowhere for a while, finally that comes out, I will certainly put vaseline on that pin next time, hopefully that helps, now unscrew the buffer thread insert and remove that. now the trigger pocket, I inserted the screw into the trigger guard, and put it against the insert, kind of tapped it a bit with a hammer, nothing, hmm, ok, finally, using a bit of effort and actually hit it with the hammer, and it pushed it right out enough to grab it and pull it out the rest of the way ny hand, ok, now all the puzzle pieces are out.
Time Spent: less than 10 minutes
Part 4, Clean up
well, considering I was removing excess resin along the way, not a lot left, just a bit of scraping here and there and it was all cleaned off, I did find along the way where I screwed up. Ok, remember back in the beginning I mentioned that when plugging the mold, the plug suddenly went in, and gushed out some resin pour from the buffer tube area, well, that created an air bubble right there at the buffer tube area, so, next time i will be certain to not do that, we know air bubbles are bad, and that sudden squirt/gush upon the plug going in abruptly caused that
Cleanup of the mold itself, after all that to me was surpirsingly easy, at most scraping with a flat tip screwdriver, cleaned up quite well in only a few minutes with minimal effort
I'm happy to answer any questions, after converting my videos i will post them, they were done with an iPad so are very large and wont upload directly.
Time Spent: less than 5 minutes
Notes to self:
I will coat some of the pins and grip screw with vaseline, hopefully to aid in removal, be more careful with inserting the fill plug, and put some silicon in the pry points on the magwell insert to aid in removal
TOTAL TIME SPENT: less than 1 Hour 45 minutes, INCLUDING the 70 minute wait time for curing
heres the mold pieces and the result
the kit is $329.99
with the kit you get a 5 pour kit, good for 5 of course
the pour kit can be purchased alone as a 5 pour recharge kit and is $119, you can also get 10 and 15 pour recharge kits
the natural resin color is white'ish, most will want the color kit which is $74.95 which is 8 'basic' colors from which you can make any color you want really, the color shown above is sort of plum, using 7 drops red, 2 drops orange, 1 drop black.
so, with those prices, the mold itself, after reducing the cost of the 5xPour kit would be about 210 bucks, the mold seems quite durable and should last 100s of pours before any thought of replacing, my EZJig plus bits cost me 210, and the endmill needs replacing every so often at about 30 bucks per. oh, my router cost 100, my drill press was 130
so, my startup cost for my first Aluminum 80% lower was
$45 TM anodized
$200 EZ Jig + bits
$130 Drill Press
$100 Router
$475 TOTAL
about 5 hours time
My startup cost for my first Molded Lower was
$404 with the 8-color color pack
$404 TOTAL
about an hour time
4 additional lowers FREE
ALL future lowers will be less than $25 each, whatever color I want
of course there is the possiblilyt of needing to replace something, but even then, averaging cost per lower wont go very high, the first 5 being about 80 bucks each, after i do 10, my cost each will have been $53~, it only goes down from there
these are just some pros
cons, i'm not sure yet, time will tell
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