[aprssig] molding around connectors

[Jim Lux]

You'll need two things.. the mold, and the goop to pour in and cure.  Then,
you need some processes..

The goop is easy.. there's a huge variety of molding compounds available,
depending on what you want to do.. temperature cure? two part self cure? UV?
etc.  If you call a company like Silpak (http://www.silpak.com probably),
they can tell you what you need to get (they sell in small quantities to
movie prop builders, etc., who do a LOT of molding)

It's the mold that will be tricky.  However, if you have a "pattern" to work
from, you can use something like plaster of paris.  Just cast the pattern
(after spraying with mold release) in the plaster.  You could also carve a
mold from wood or similar.

You'll need some sort of jig to hold the wires and prongs in the right
position.

The thing you'll really need is a box full of parts to get your process
controls worked out.  You need to worry about things like time and
temperature, pour viscosity, and degassing the mixture (a vacuum pump helps
a lot).  Count on doing this a couple dozen times before you can
consistently crank out nicely molded parts. It's not expensive, just time
consuming.  But, I imagine that in a week or two of evenings, you could be a
master molder. (well, perhaps not a master, but a competent molder)