Molding and casting a guitar body

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    • #25179
      Levy
      Guest

      Hi all!

      I’ve been thinking about this project and would appreciate your feedback.
      I want to create the body of a (bass) guitar out of epoxy resin, probably in some combination with wood as epoxy is heavy.

      This is how I see the process:

      First, get a solid body guitar, take apart the neck and the electronics so I’m left with just the body, which has some smooth finish to it. any part of it that doesn’t have a finish (like the area under where the neck goes, cover with some tape.

      Put the body in some “cage”. For this purpose I though of using Lego.

      Add some extension to the body (perhaps tape something to it) so the lower part of the body touches the cage over a few centimeters (this is where I’ll pour the resin to. I will have to cut it off and finish it nicely when it’s done).

      Use clay to cover all the area between the body and the cage, to the height of about half of the guitar body. Add some channels and holes in the clay, especially a channel around the whole body to make sure the resin will stay in place when it’s casted.

      Pour the silicone over the body up to the edge of the cage I built. I intend to use OOMOO 30, I saw it doesn’t require vacuuming and I hope (maybe you can tell?) it can withstand the heat of the epoxy I will later pour in. In this stage I don’t put a mold release yet (or do I?)

      When the silicone is cured, I flip it over, remove the clay, put mold release on the silicone that cured and pour the other half, up to the top of the cage.

      Once the silicone is cured I should have my mold ready. I can split it to two and take the guitar body out. The mold should have an opening on the lower part of the body.

      Now as I wrote I don’t want to cast it 100% epoxy as it’ll be too heavy. I thought about filling up the mold with some colorful mulch – relatively large chunks of it (and clean it from dust and dirt). It should be light and decrease the weight of my product significantly. I will do some tests beforehand to see how much weight it takes off.

      So, putting the two pieces of the mold together, use some strong rubber to keep everything in place (but without deforming the silicone),and after filling it up with mulch, I will mix my epoxy. I want to use Ecopoxy Liquid plastic (2:1 ratio) as it’s very clear, hard, and looks really nice. I might add some color to it as well.

      A solid (bass) guitar body is about 4 liters in volume (actually I can measure it exactly when the mold is ready by pouring water). The mulch should take some of it, I’ll try to test it with water as well.
      I’m afraid that when I pour the epoxy in, the mulch will try to float, and even if I put enough so that the mulch itself prevents the lower pieces to float, I will still have some gaps at the very bottom. But it might still be ok.

      Anyway, pour the epoxy, let it cure, hope the heat doesn’t ruin the mold or the mulch, split the mold and I should have an almost ready piece.

      What do you think? 😀

    • #25195
      Katherine Swift
      Keymaster

      Hi Levy,

      What a neat project! I’m not clear on a few things, so I’m hoping you can give me some more information:

      1. Your cage is essentially an open box, yes? I’m wondering why you need an extension to the body of the guitar if it’s open on the top.

      2. I’m not clear on why you want the clay. You want the area between the guitar body and the mold box wall to fill with silicone so that it takes up the shape of the guitar.

    • #25200
      Levy
      Guest

      Hi Katherine!
      Indeed my cage is an open box. The reason I want The extension and the clay is to have a full and closed 3D mold of the body. Essentially I want to do what they did here in this video – I think it should make my idea clearer 🙂
      https://youtu.be/REETYgEapoY

      • #25223
        Katherine Swift
        Keymaster

        Hi Levy,

        That makes more sense. What you need to do is create a sprue, like with lost wax casting. You use a piece of wax to connect the body with the outside wall.

        I’m still not sure why you need the clay though. It can take up space so that you don’t have to use as much silicone. Is that what you are trying to do?

    • #25286
      Levy
      Guest

      Hi Katherine! I don’t know a lot about lost wax casting – I’ll make sure to learn about it, thanks!

      The clay is there to allow me to have a mold in two pieces that will split open and allow to take out the original (and also the resin, after casting it and letting it cure) without harming the mold – this is the process they show in the video I shared (they also use clay there).

      I think that if I just cast one pour of silicone around the guitar body without the clay I won’t be able to take out the original without cutting/tearing the mold. What do you think?

      • #25303
        Katherine Swift
        Keymaster

        Hi Levy, yes, you can use the clay like they show in the video to make a two-part mold.

        By the way, we can continue to talk here, but I think I can give you a better answer if we can set up a time to talk face-to-face. I would be happy to set you up for a 15 minute consultation call. If you want to send an email through our contact page, I am happy to respond with prices and availability.

    • #27790
      Levy
      Guest

      Thanks Katherine 🙂

      I wonder it you know, does epoxy need any exposure to air to cure? Or suppose I fill a mold that has only a small opening for bubbles to come out, should it still cure just fine?

    • #27810
      Levy
      Guest

      Thanks again 🙂

    • #60438
      Bill froehlich
      Guest

      Do you use a slow setting epoxy? Any issues with bubbles? What kind of epoxy do you suggest if creating a wood live edge river?

      Thank you for any direction you may be able to provide.

      Best regards

    • #82810
      Levy
      Guest

      Bill, sorry to have missed your post!
      I’m using Ecopoxy 2:1 that takes about 72 hours to cure. If bubbles have anywhere to go they will go out but when trapped inside the mold you do get a thin layer of microbubbles. I didn’t try to sand them out yet.

      Almost a year into the project and I have some results!

      https://youtu.be/wawbdgNWIxA

      I used a wood core inside the epoxy, however is still turned out heavier than desired. I wonder if there’s anything I can mix with the epoxy that would make it considerably lighter, yet still strong and liquid enough to work with.

      Katherine I’d be so happy if you could help with this issue 🙂

      • #82814
        Katherine Swift
        Keymaster

        Hi Levy,

        Alumilite has a product called ‘microballoons’ that helps to bulk up the resin so it’s not so heavy. They can give you better advice on how to use it in this situation.

    • #82819
      Shahar Levy
      Guest

      Thank you Katherine, I’ll definitely check that

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