>>35270
>Do you anticipate you'll make the attempt to fashion some kind of mold and do some experiments with this stuff?
It takes me forever to do physical experiments. I've bought some of the stuff needed do experiments. It's progress but slow.
I don't have the time, energy (I'm old) to do the making parts "fast", but I have time to look stuff up and I've slowly been gathering materials. I do have fiberglass and canvas for experiments. I am going to order some of these plastisol resins. I "think", if what they are selling is what plastosol is normally by name, that this is PVC that is pour-able and activated by heat. I'm interested if you can vary the hardness far above "worm cast" level in the plastisol to make a harder substance with the hardener. How hard can it get???? The quarts are $15 or so, so they are not too bad. The cost of these is super reasonable compared to most other plastics you can cast. Though they do require heating to react.
Another experiment I want to do it to pour this stuff between two thin glass sheets to make a strong window for my boat. Normal boat windows are acrylic (super expensive) and it scratches. With two glass faces and clear PVC in between you would think it would be super strong. Of course this remains to be seen.
Some stuff I have ordered, some I have and why I have and/or need it. I just ordered some 12,000 grit aluminium oxide(Al2O3) to attempt to make gears, functional parts in 3D printed casting molds. I believe using carbon fiber/fiberglass and/or some combination you can make gears/bearings/functional parts. I talked about this here, and I think I have a game plan for accomplishing this.
>>28200
You use the Al2O3 to provide a very hard facing which also fills in gaps in the carbon fiber. I also have fumed silica and milled fiberglass to add to this(these having different micron size). I believe there is a vast amount of things that can be made out of composites traditionally made with machining of metals but using the strength of carbon fiber/fiberglass with fillers for facing. Some of these could not be made "easily", or at all, with machine tools but I think can be trivially done(in comparison), with 3D printed molds and composite materials.
Here's the general idea. When you make super strong concrete, you need to fill all the spaces and have very little of the concrete "glue" paste. The same goes for composites. Carbon fiber is super strong, but not necessarily a hard facing. It can be abraded. The key, I believe, is to have the general shape of functional parts like bearing/gears and have an outer layer of super fine, well packed, hard, strong materials, like noted above, as a very thin film, (note, this is VERY thin). Only enough to fit in the pores of the carbon fiber mesh that is placed above it. Below this could be, not sure yet, some layers of carbon fiber and below that fiberglass. As you notice, you are making a layered material varying in hardness/stiffness and using less of the hard stuff (and mostly more expensive). You end up with a super accurate, hard finish, with a more flexible interior on your parts. EXACTLY what you need. Textbook super strong composites with hard , and strong, faces. You need this for ball and socket joints, gear faces, bearing faces, etc.
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