The pour log, and the fields that matter
Updated
On this page8
The fields
- Batch code and date.
- Product and lot, both parts, with the date each container was opened.
- Ratio basis used, weight or volume, and the actual amounts.
- Room temperature, and the temperature of the resin if you warmed it.
- Total mass mixed, and the pour depth.
- Mold used, and its pull count.
- Time to gel, time to demold.
- Outcome, and what was scrapped and why.
Why those three carry it
The ratio basis explains every tacky piece. The room temperature explains the batches that behaved differently for no visible reason. The mass and depth explain every overheat. Nearly every page in the failures section resolves to one of the three.
Record the opening date of the hardener
It is the component that ages once air reaches it, and an unexplained failed cure months into a container is usually this. The date costs a pen stroke at the moment you break the seal.
Write it during, not after
A log completed at the end of the day records what you intended. It has to live at the bench, and in this craft it has to be fillable with gloves on, which argues for a clipboard and a thick pen rather than a phone.
Keep the scrap reasons
A tally of why pieces failed over a month is what tells you whether to buy a pressure pot, warm the workshop or change how you mix. Without it the next purchase is a guess.
It is also your exposure record
How many pours, over how long, is the only picture you will ever have of cumulative exposure. That is a reason to keep these logs long after the pieces are sold.
One line per pour, not one per day
A day with four pours is four sets of conditions, and collapsing them into a single entry loses exactly the comparison that makes the log useful. The room warms through the afternoon and the fourth pour is not the first.
Keep it somewhere the pieces can be matched back to it. A casting with no batch reference is a piece you cannot diagnose when it comes back.