When we purchased the Heavy Duty Mold line back in June, we planned on expanding the already cool mold line. There are so many nifty mold ideas floating around my head and I’ve heard some incredible design thoughts from soapers over the years. Having the freedom to design new molds has long been a dream. With the purchase of the Heavy Duty Mold line, that dream is a reality. And like many dreams that turn into reality, the reality is a little um, hazier than it appeared to be at first glance.
We have a large warehouse for ELF Industrial (the name of the company set up to design, produce and manufacture the Heavy Duty Line and new molds). In this warehouse we have a vacuum forming machine and the backstock of Heavy Duty Molds. We also have a complicated, beautiful machine that is run by a heavy duty computer program. The ‘beautiful machine‘ then cuts designs to the computer’s specifications.
We have been working on various custom design project for a couple months. The designs are done. The dies are cut. And we’ve produced molds with the dies. So far, so good.
Alas, the molds have striations – fine tiny lines running down the entire width. We’ve tried sanding them away and still, the sanding isn’t totally invisible to the naked eye when a mold is made. These fine lines are called ‘tooling marks‘ and apparently, everyone gets them. While I will admit to some irritated rumination (‘Why didn’t anyone tell me this before now? Did the expensive beautiful machine people not mention this on purpose?‘), mostly I’ve been hard at work trying to find an alternative solution to the mostly-not-totally-working sanding option.l
I’ve called a chocolate molding company. They get them and say the only thing to do is sand them. Erik (manager of Otion and ELF) has called the materials supplier and they say to sand them. I called a chemical company. They said to sand them. But, they also suggested a low pH solution to try and buff out the lines with a chemical bath.
I tried a solution with a pH of 3. That didn’t make a dent. Today, I’m trying a variety of chemical concotions that have proven to alter Polyurethane. The dies are made out of a very high density Polyurethane and thus far, seem impervious to everything.
I’m coming to you because with all of your different industries and backgrounds you will have ideas. If you have a winning suggestion that works to smooth the striations, I will send you a set of the brand new, not yet released molds, as we perfect them. That’s 12 molds in all. Or, if you’re not into molds, I’ll give you a gift certificate to Bramble Berry for $50. You can post ideas here or if you want yours to stay super secret, email me at info (at) brambleberry (dot) com. You can also feel warm and cheery inside knowing that you’ve saved me countless hours of teeth gnashing, phone calls, chemical engineering consulting and helped further the innovative soap mold industry.
Got any ideas? Email or post ’em. I’m confident the soaping community can solve this small chemical engineering mystery.
