What I don't understand is why you need to use so much resin. If you were making two-part molds so the walls of the hull were relatively thin, would the volume required still be that much? What am I missing here?
I think what is occurring is that my hull walls are not that thin at about 0.25", and I'm not hollowing out the rear 2/3rds, which are usually about 0.50-0.875" thick. As a solid pour, the Reliance class cutter takes 20 oz.of casting materials. As the bow is sharply raked and undercut, and the rear 2/3rds are about 0.875 thick, I think I'd need a four-part mold to cast it with thin walls. As it is, the 20 oz costs me about $8.00 a pour, and a plug might save me $2.50 or so, and be a real pain to clean up every time, as I've learned with the Aggressive class. In fact, I've gone back to a solid pour for the Aggressive class, at 14 oz total. I've found it much easier to just fill the mold all the way to the top than to fill it halfway, slap the plug into place, and watch excess resin leak out the joining. I finally figured out that the two-part Aggressive mold required 9.375 oz, and that if I mixed 9.5 oz, I got a mess on the table.
Over time I've learned how to mix and pour more quickly, which has alleviated the problems with a too-fast set.
A brute force way to pour hulls, I guess. And it won't work when I get up to the 500-footers. But pouring a 'box" for the mid-section of the biggies shouldn't be too hard.
I know, I just jinxed the C-2 and C-3 freighters.
