I am getting (delivered tomorrow) 3 FDM printed ASA plastic prototype aerofoils, maximum dimension 600 mm.
I hope to use these
1.    for quite a few months of functional testing,
2.    for making a mould from which to produce lightweight carbon-fibre replicates of the prototypes.
Perhaps you can advise me what surface treatment would suit these aims.
I want a high-gloss finish that
1.    Will not compromise the ASA plastic parts. A compatible system that will not weaken the parts or cause surface cracking.
2.    Suits making moulds using wet lay-up.
3.    Suits making moulds using pre-preg. carbon fibre. In this case the ASA plastic parts must not be heated beyond ASA softening temperature (>90C).
What processing and materials would you advise?

To use a tooling pre-preg to make your moulds, such as our XPREG XT135Tooling Prepreg,  then your plastic needs to be able to go to 60C as a pattern for the mould.  The rest of the pre-preg cure is done with the pattern removed. So the ASA seems fine on temperature.

In terms of wet lay up, a pre-preg mould will be suitable to make wet lay up parts as well as pre-preg parts so you would not need 2 different moulds. 

Ensure you use a release agent which can handle the 60C such as our Easy-Lease Chemical Release Agent



Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant