so binge, remember how we were talking about partially cured thermosets? here's the thermoset bible in abridged form. the short answer is that most thermosets can be partially cured. what actually happens it that a thermoset is defined as a poly that goes from a goo full of monomers and slag and what have you and then as you put energy into it goes into a glass transition and then eventually becomes a gel. hence, there are three distinct phases to most thermosets during the application of energy
A: no energy. goo
B: vitrification. some monomers have joined into polymer networks. however, the compound is generally considered glass and the thermoset has not set, which is marked by:
C: gelification. this is a full cure and means that the thermoset has become a single infinitely long polymer network (that is, unlike say thermoplastics and most other polymers, there are no end-caps to the polymer chains, thermosets are defined by the fact that they form cyclical polymer networks at full cure, and actually less by the fact that energy makes them hard. what it specifically does to them is make these cyclical polymer networks.
you can suspend a thermoset in a state of vitrification with impurities (eg, air) removed. since it's glass at this point (B), it shouldn't take on additional air bubbles. obviously this depends on the thermoset material properties. sets for which state B is very soft are obviously going to have a harder time being partially set, for example.
so in short, all you need is one compession pot and a carefully chosen thermoset for an entire community to have molding material. pretty cool considering we went from 0 to 2 in a flash
see:
http://www.primethermosets.com/introtothermosets.pdf
