Making improvements

[workinforwood]

Over the years material costs continue to rise but I have never passed those costs to my customers. Instead I constantly make improvements to how I produce things to save time and materials. With rotacrylics there is a few dozen at least processes and expenses going on...it's not just magical rods appear and just need loaded into a machine and then packaged. I have things set up like a production line which has several different staging areas from start to finished product.
One of the big costs and time consuming processes is the molds. A well made mold saves time and resin...but what most don't realise is you save here but lose there. Silicone actually costs more than resin, so it's kinda funny when you here resin saver mold but the resin saved was transferred into silicone. Mind you over time there is savings because you pour 60-80 blanks per single mold before that mold requires replacing. So if you are building custom molds you want to try to reduce the use of silicone but more than that it's the time it takes to harvest molds that matters most!
It's hard to believe but I have been pouring 18 rods at a time, 36 over two pots. My mold however is only 6 rods, and I only have 1 mold die, so I must create 6 molds and each mold takes 2 days to cure. It's an antiquated process. I sat down and re engineered the system so that a mold is now 9 rods instead of six and the finished mold will only be 1/4" larger base size. I am also building two identical dies, so I can create 18 rods worth of mold in 2 days and at the same time should save about 30% silicone used. The real saving though is 4 days to replace molds instead of 12 days.
I am sharing a few pictures but I can not show everything, especially how finished dies look. I spend countless hours innovating new techniques and over the years I have had countless ideas taken from me, so I now only show a little bit of stuff and force others to engineer their own equipment. Nothing sadder than seeing others profit off your personal creativity.

This photo is my old system...molds upside down

 

[workinforwood]

Making the new molds with melamine and delrin. Cheap long lasting materials that are very slick that silicone won't stick to. That red thing is a spade bit that I ground the point off, I use it in my drill to mix silicone.

 

[wyone]

I love seeing your pictures... It is very interesting. I will keep looking for more pictures

 

[workinforwood]

You won't find many. I am happy to help guide people in making their own custom molds but I can't reveal exactly my own molds if you know what I mean. So I can help with materials and certainly give tips how it should be constructed but what your actual product is will be engineered by you.

 

[wyone]

I TOTALLY respect and understand that. So far I have only played a bit with casting.. and will be doing more, but nothing to the extent you do. I only sort of drooled at the stock of blanks you have in the background of the pictures.

 

[The Penguin]

I'm happy to let you do the work, I'll just buy blanks.

 

[workinforwood]

Those rods in the background are basically stage 1 for the rotacrylics. There's several hundred rods there, every one poured by hand. I used up 10 gallons of resin last week just pouring rods only, and there's several more steps the rods must travel through before they make it to packaging. I like to think of it sorta like the tortoise and the hair, because the entire process takes so long you only get a few finished blanks per day, but if you only just keep a steady pace then it accumulates into a nice pile of inventory over a month. The tediousness of making rods and molds has certainly got my attention that it's time to improve things. I actually designed a large aluminum casting mold that would eliminate using silicone altogether and it would last forever, but the machining cost plus materials was almost $2000...doing the math meant it would take about 6 yrs to recover just that cost, so I am just revising and improving the current system which has benefits too. Large aluminum molds and a two ton press....such a sweet dream...oh well

 

[robertkulp]

Never really thought about the production, but it's very interesting. It's obvious that you have worked hard to streamline your processes and procedures and you should guard them accordingly.

I loved the photos and they got me thinking. Hmmm... What's he not showing? What's his secret ingredient? I have some ideas and some day I might try to figure it out. Until then, I'll just stick with my PVC pipes and cast a few at a time.

Thank you for sharing. The pen community is really great in that even the vendors and manufacturers share their wisdom. I agree with you though, it is sad that there are those who take advantage of this generosity and steal other's ideas.

 

[wyone]

Well Jeff will never have to worry about me stealing his work. I looked threw the variety of blanks he sells through Exotic Blanks. All I can say is.. WOW... such a variety of colors, styles... I would never have the skills, or artistry or even imagination to do most of the things you do.

I like seeing how things work. One of the places I used to work was an injection molding company. It was so cool to watch how they made things there. But they were depending on volume. They were making parts that literally sold for LESS than a penny each, so it took a lot to pay for costs. But it was very interesting

 

[robertkulp]

I'll tell you what else I like about this. With the exception of the pen kits, much of the pen making materials are made by small shops or just a guy in his garage, instead of a large factory cranking out thousands of the same thing.

To you and all the other suppliers and resellers - Keep up the good work. Your job is much harder than ours.

Thank you.

 

[stonepecker]

I NEVER want to pour anything.

I am having to much fun doing what I am. No need to make more work for myself when we have true artists doing the work they do.


But I am looking at a Vac system. Like others, I have dreams also.

Keep up the great work Jeff.

 

[workinforwood]

Recycling

I finished the guts in my new mold dies. I always save my old molds. I learned a long time ago that you can re use a good amount of the old molds and it has absolutely no affect on the new molds life span. When a mold dies, really only about 1/4 inch deep all around the cavities is what is dead. Every time you pour resin a little bit of the oil in the silicone is drawn out, thus drying out the mold and destroying it. But all the silicone beyond the obvious dried out areas is completely recycleable. You just need to spend the time to cut those areas off...about 30 minutes time but over several molds it's extremely worthwhile! Do not ever use power tools to cut silicone!!!! Just a sharp knife and scissors...like fileting a fish :biggrin:
Mix your silicone extremely thoroughly in your cups and then pour in some of the silicone pieces and mix it in. I cut mine into strips about 1/4" wide and then use scissors to make 1/4" cups...bit bigger or smaller doesn't matter. When I learned about it, guys where using coffee grinders, but that's alot of work and it's not necessary to create such small pieces for a pen mold. If your doing sculpture molds with a lot of fine details then I bet super small is better.
Combined, my new molds used 58 ounces of silicone plus 10 ounces recycled. The old molds combined where 90 ounces plus 10 recycled ounces...so my rebuilding my masters I saved 30 ounces of silicone plus less time pouring molds.

 

[workinforwood]

Here's the filled dies. You can't even see the recycled material. All the bubbles are no matter, silicone cures very slow. Air will rise and pressure will crush what's left. Pressure on a mold should be equal to pressure it will be used under. I use 40-45 pounds. I see no reason anything ever needs more pressure than that. If your pouring something that only works out with more pressure then there's a problem...you need to rethink and engineer a solution as to why it needs more pressure because pressure is a very dangerous thing to be working around.

 

[workinforwood]

24 hrs is suggested amount of time before demolding but I have found it is much better, especially in the winter when my shop is 65 degrees constant temp, 48 hrs it's should stay in the pot. When removed from the pot i dismantle and remove the silicone right away. It was under pressure, so if it's not under pressure but still in the die it will deform.