I don't know if this is something or not. Between David's die casting idea and the talk about foam detail I thought about pressing foam into a hot metal mold. If the molten foam covered and conformed you might get a pretty good surface which could be cast with a coating. So here's my primitive proof of concept. I took an AL seashell I cast and heated it with a butane torch and mushed some white foam into it. Stuck like crazy and had to wire brush it off. Sprayed it with graphite dry lube and got varied results with temp. It was hard to keep the heat even with the torch. But still some promise. Like hot wire cutting the foam wants to pull away from the heat unless enough foam is pushing from behind. Set up the heat gun to control the temp and got better results. The white seems to take a lot more thickness to melt to get the job done. Graphite release was working good. Something else might work but that's what I had at hand. Just a raw test here. Best result I got was pink foam and the gun at 1150 high range and heated for about a minute. Controlling the heat was important and I also dunked it in water for a quick cool down. Another way to mold foam? A two part cast AL negative mold with heating elements and channels for CO2 cooling cast into it you bring together around a block of foam? Is this something? Well, I had fun and made a mess.
That is interesting Cactus. As opposed to part molding what came to my mind was detailing XPS patterns with hot stamps for either decorative embossments or part numbering and lettering. BTW Cactus, it's nice to have another Avatar in the left column of this subforum. Thanks for the post. Best, Kelly
