DanG..don't let the 7 day full cure fool ya.
"I certainly would test compatibility before risking pounds of copper to a sloppy wax diluted epoxy."
The epoxy will loose all its viscosity witthin an hour. The pot life is 40 min.
It is not tacky in 12 hrs.
And as far as the tech says, a wax release agent will work best in the mold and not contaminate the epoxy at all. the way I see it, contamination is not even an issue.
The wax used in lost wax castings is not the same as a wax candle. there are many types to use and I would probably use the one that will melt off at the lowest temp.
I have built plastic injection, rubber compression, alu and zinc die cast molds...I have about 35 years experience in the molding industry and now am doing the lost wax as a hobby. So I completely understand the processes involved.
This is what I had in mind to impliment your idea.
I will wind the coils, across the 2 long legs in the middle I will put a zip tie on each side to hold the coil together and not contaminate the surface with finger oils, tape, glues and such to keep the surface as clean as possible.
Then I could build a jig where I could clamp all the coils down in a strait line and they would be in the same liniar plane. The clamps would run across the middle of the coils. Basicly, 2 strips of wood with a screw running thru the center of each coil to hold them all in place.
Imagine making Kool-aid Ice pops with the sticks.
You could let one end of all the coils sit in little molds that would be the slightly ticker than the thickness of the stator body.(.01"). A compression would keep flash seepage to a min. Now you could do a less precision approach, where the wax placement would not be as critical and just go ahead and let the epoxy flash across the wax and cut off that flash before the bake. But a slip with the grinder would not be good.
Once you had molded wax squares on each end of the coils, you would then take the coils and place them the way they will sit in the mold. You could cut off the zip ties and then have a nice clean area for the epoxy to bond to across the centers of the coils. If you made your mold right(a 2 piece with the center plug out) you could just set the coils directly in the mold and solder them without your torch damaging the mold. Once you soldered and heat shrinked all the areas that need be, put in the plug and cast the stator.
I would want the coils to be completly saturated on the end with wax(instead of just being coated) as so no epoxy at all could whick its way into the center areas of the coil. This is why you would just want to bake out the wax. if you had too you could take it out of the oven and spin it to evac any residual way by centerfug..after that you would remove any epoxy flash that needs to be removed with a grinder.
The end result of the moulded stator would be a dough nut of epoxy the same size as the magnet path, with mounting legs 1" to 1 1/2" wide, comming up from the areas in between the coils.
It would look like a sprocket or gear. Both ends of the coils would be totally exposed to the air.
With the use of an aggragate, some fiberglass on the top and bottom of the mold surfaces same as before, and an epoxy that is twice as strong and will withstand heat twice as good as vinyl ester, the sprocket design should be just as strong as what is being used now.
After all it will have an attach point at every coil.
Anyways, all of this was just my first knee jerk reaction.
I am still contemplating the whole thing...
