Mold Making and Resin Casting

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SECRETS OF EXPERT MOLD MAKING & RESIN CASTING - second edition

FROM - KARL K. JUELCH

FIRST LOOK REVIEW BY DES DELATORRE

Mold making and resin casting is a process we all dream of perfecting, to be able to manufacture our own parts to exacting standards would be a wish come true. Now that this book is available we can all now achieve our goals and produce flawless three dimensional objects at home with little expense. The book was written to appeal to a diverse audience, in addition to modelers of all types, enthusiastic readers of the first edition included all sorts of artists and craftspeople.



The author, Karl Juelch is a very accomplished modeler and lifelong aviation enthusiast and his passion for historic aircraft motivated him to learn as much a  possible in mold making and resin casting. He sourced as much information as he could, even spoke to his dentist and questioned him about how he made molds fo crowns, but it was his introduction to a retired master mold maker and learning from his experience that has made this book possible.

The book is a paperback and is 6"x 9" (150mm x 230mm), it has 120 pages and over 100 line drawings, the illustrations were done by Karl.

Part One of the book concentrates on molds and mold making, it covers areas such as;
 
Mold material,
Mold types
Essential tools and fixtures.
 
Each of these chapters are extremely well written and include very clear and easy to understand illustrations. The text in this book is of a good size and is very easy to read, plain, easy to understand English is used throughout the book.
Other chapters in section one include;
 
Designing a mold
Introduction to Flat and Clay Bed Mold Making
Making the Flat Bed Mold
Making the Clay Bed Mold

Again, these chapters are very thourough and describe each process extremely well, as I was reading the book I found that I was not getting lost with the use of technical jargon or words I could not understand. The use of a multitude of illustrations helps the reader to fully understand the processes.



To round up Part One there is;

Using RTV
Multi part Mold Preparations
Making a Core Mold.

The chapter covering RTV (room temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber) is very comprehensive, it covers RTV calculations, tools required for mixing, weighing RTV base and Catalyst, included is a Silicone Base to Catalyst Ratio Formula, this is all very important information.

Part Two of the book covers another five chapters;

Casting Methods
Casting materials
Casting preparation
Casting
Curing resin

There are many different casting methods, the most significant ones being: ambient casting, squash casting, centrifugal casting, spin casting, vacuum casting, pressure casting and combined vacuum/pressure casting. An explanation of each of these methods is explained in the book.

Part Three of the book covers;

The vacuum chamber
The pressure chamber
The pressure chamber oven

These three chapters give a very good description on the vacuum and pressure methods of casting

STOCKIST

This book is available from ;

http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Expert.../dp/1492294942

PRICE

$17.99

CONCLUSION

For anyone wanting to make molds and resin cast or for those who want to improve their mold and casting skills this is the book which will help them out. The advice and techniques described in this book are excellent and very easy to follow, the illustrations are simple but descriptive. The book is very well written with clear large type and in plain easy to understand English. Part Three of the book may be a little advanced for the average modeler but with the correct materials and a little knowledge I'm sure that anyone could progress to the Vacuum and pressure casting methods.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Thanks to Karl Juelch for providing the review sample