Richard,

We currently use three types of mounting media. Sampl-Kwik (for quick,
non-critical jobs), Epofix and Caldofix (both Struers products). We find
that the Epofix (8 hour cure in ambient) is very good for edge retention
and minimum shrinkage. For critical samples we evacuate the epoxy in a
vacuum oven (at ambient) after preparation to eliminate voids afterwards in
the cured epoxy. The Calofix is also very good for edge retention and
minimum shrinkage. It can be cured in about 1.5 hours. The drawback with
this epoxy is that it has to be oven cured at about 75C. We have not
evacuated uncured Caldofix in the vacuum oven, but I see no obvious reason
why this cannot be tried. The two struers products also give very good
visibility to the molded sample (whereas with Sampl-Kwik the cured mold
appears very "cloudy" after cure).

Hope this helps

Adrian Mulcahy


. and "c At 01:49 PM 14/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>We are currently using Buehler Sampl-Kwik for our coupon mounting.
>However, due to cost issues we are looking at alternative compounds.
>
>I've seen acrylics, polyesters, and epoxies.  The epoxies have very long
>cure times and have eleminated them from consideration.
>
>We grind both by hand and on a Nelson-Zimmer system.
>
>What compounds do you use and why?
>
>Are acrylics preferred over polyesters?
>
>Any information would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks for your time.
>
>Richard MacCutcheon
>
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Adrian Mulcahy                               Tel:- 353-(0)21-904227/904393
National Microelectronics Research Centre,   Fax:- 353-(0)21-270271
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