Yes you can, but you might see that the epoxy attacks the silicone moulds. That can result in a slightly dull surface of the epoxy mount and the lifetime of the silicone mould can be reduced.
@djsalvi26 Yes, you can cure the resin at elevated temperatures like 60°C. However, it depends very much on the amount of resin you have. The larger the amount, the bigger the risk that the temperature will run off. For a 30 mm mount, it is not a problem, for a 50 mm mount, it could be trouble. And the higher the temperature gets, the higher the shrinkage/gap between resin and sample. If you have the possibility to keep the temperature constant at 60°C (heating first and cooling when the exothermic reaction starts) instead of heating only that would be perfect. To reduce viscosity we recommend to heat the resin only before mixing with the hardener. Thus you will get a quite thin liquid and you can heat up a larger amount without starting the curing reaction. It will also make mixing easier. Hope that helps, Michael
Akasel A/S Hi Michael thanks for your quick answear, I‘ m using at the moment Caldofix-2 I‘ m really happy with this product, but I‘ m looking for an alternativ product to not be dependant from Caldofix-2 the problem the most of Epoxy product on the market are really sensitive to heat, my experience is you get a bether hardness of the resin if you curing it up to 60•C in a oven ,after polishing the samples are really flat and sharp on the contact line between material and resin.
@@djsalvi26 With the epoxy system we have, you can use one resin, Aka-Resin Liquid Epoxy, with two different hardeners, Aka-Cure, Slow and Aka-Cure, Quick. The Aka-Cure, Slow cures within 8-24 hours at room temperature (22°C) As explained before, it can be heated up to 60°C to speed up curing, but depending on the amount of resin the temperature can increase very fast. The Aka-Cure, Quick is similar to the CaldoFix. It will cure within 30 min. when heated up to 80°C. However, an even better result can be obtained when using a 2 cycle curing schedule. First, the mount is cured without heating for 8 hours, followed by a 1-hour cycle @ 100°C. This will also give you a very good result with perfect planeness and edge retention.
Yes, with slow curing epoxy resins the resin and metal are at the same level. You only have to be careful when you mix and mount large amounts, then the temperature can get very high and the shrinkage will increase. That can/will result in the metalsample being slightly higher/sticking out of the resin.
@@akasel if i am using a fixation clip to clip my small sample and the cross section that I would like to view is facing on top (unlike the samples in the video where the cross section view is at the bottom), how much resin mixture should i pour to my sample?
@@mcmc727 Because of the surface tension of the resin you will always have some resin moving up the side of the mounting form/mould. You have to make sure to cover the entire sample and then remove excesss resin through carefull grinding. However, I would always mount the sample facing downwards as shown in the video. With our plastic clips it will only be small circular legs on the bottom of the sample and there is no contact between clip and sample at the level of preparation. Here is a link to how these clips look: www.akasel.com/products/embedding/accessories/aka-trioclip-black.html
@@akasel I have take a look on the clips. If it is mounted facing downwards, this means that the sample has to be on the same level as the top of the small circular legs, am I right?
Can we use silcion moulds instead of mounting cups
Yes you can, but you might see that the epoxy attacks the silicone moulds. That can result in a slightly dull surface of the epoxy mount and the lifetime of the silicone mould can be reduced.
Can we cure the resin in a oven by 60• Celcius? Or heat it up to reduce the viscosity?
@djsalvi26 Yes, you can cure the resin at elevated temperatures like 60°C. However, it depends very much on the amount of resin you have. The larger the amount, the bigger the risk that the temperature will run off. For a 30 mm mount, it is not a problem, for a 50 mm mount, it could be trouble. And the higher the temperature gets, the higher the shrinkage/gap between resin and sample. If you have the possibility to keep the temperature constant at 60°C (heating first and cooling when the exothermic reaction starts) instead of heating only that would be perfect. To reduce viscosity we recommend to heat the resin only before mixing with the hardener. Thus you will get a quite thin liquid and you can heat up a larger amount without starting the curing reaction. It will also make mixing easier.
Hope that helps,
Michael
Akasel A/S Hi Michael thanks for your quick answear, I‘ m using at the moment Caldofix-2 I‘ m really happy with this product, but I‘ m looking for an alternativ product to not be dependant from Caldofix-2 the problem the most of Epoxy product on the market are really sensitive to heat, my experience is you get a bether hardness of the resin if you curing it up to 60•C in a oven ,after polishing the samples are really flat and sharp on the contact line between material and resin.
@@djsalvi26 With the epoxy system we have, you can use one resin, Aka-Resin Liquid Epoxy, with two different hardeners, Aka-Cure, Slow and Aka-Cure, Quick. The Aka-Cure, Slow cures within 8-24 hours at room temperature (22°C) As explained before, it can be heated up to 60°C to speed up curing, but depending on the amount of resin the temperature can increase very fast. The Aka-Cure, Quick is similar to the CaldoFix. It will cure within 30 min. when heated up to 80°C. However, an even better result can be obtained when using a 2 cycle curing schedule. First, the mount is cured without heating for 8 hours, followed by a 1-hour cycle @ 100°C. This will also give you a very good result with perfect planeness and edge retention.
after mounting, is the metal at the same level as the resin layer?
Yes, with slow curing epoxy resins the resin and metal are at the same level. You only have to be careful when you mix and mount large amounts, then the temperature can get very high and the shrinkage will increase. That can/will result in the metalsample being slightly higher/sticking out of the resin.
@@akasel if i am using a fixation clip to clip my small sample and the cross section that I would like to view is facing on top (unlike the samples in the video where the cross section view is at the bottom), how much resin mixture should i pour to my sample?
@@mcmc727 Because of the surface tension of the resin you will always have some resin moving up the side of the mounting form/mould. You have to make sure to cover the entire sample and then remove excesss resin through carefull grinding. However, I would always mount the sample facing downwards as shown in the video. With our plastic clips it will only be small circular legs on the bottom of the sample and there is no contact between clip and sample at the level of preparation. Here is a link to how these clips look: www.akasel.com/products/embedding/accessories/aka-trioclip-black.html
@@akasel I have take a look on the clips. If it is mounted facing downwards, this means that the sample has to be on the same level as the top of the small circular legs, am I right?
@@mcmc727 Yes, the clip is standing on the legs, and the sample is pushed all the way down.