[patchmcg]

More from Dan last night:

And now, the moment of truth...

The first step to de-molding the plug is to use a couple of plastic wedges to walk around the periphery to break loose the parting plate.



Normally the next step would be to pour water in the gap to start dissolving the PVA. While looking into the gap between the mold and the parting plate I saw that the parting plate was loose from the mold, but that the bowl was still stuck to the inside of the mold.

And, success! After some careful use of the wedges working my way around the bowl and pouring water into the gap I was able to get the bowl out of the mold with no damage to either one. (Woo hoo!)

This is why I built the plug to be disassembled and with the hole in the insert. I've had too many plugs stuck inside the mold. I unscrewed the parting plate from the bowl/insert which gave me access to the bowl/insert. I had to pretty much destroy the MDC insert to separate it from the bowl. This would allow the bowl to flex enough for me to pour water down in the gap between the bowl and the mold.





There are a couple of very minor flaws in the mold where some un-cured (poorly mixed?) surface coat were applied, but for the most part, I'm very happy with how it turned out and it can be used to lay up my own bowls. I'll use my Dremel and cutoff wheel to trim the excess mold flange in the next few days.

This bowl is still very usable. I've on;y been saving it so I could splash a mold from it. Now that this is done and because this is a very high quality molded piece, I'll use this to build a guitar, probably an Elite with quintad braces and definitely a torrefied top.

Next job is to lay up a mold over Patch's parlor.