I was not aware that you were making things for public sale. It is not an easy thing to do. I personally have over 90,000 invested in tools, molds, equipment, and shop space and I am also going through a bit of restructuring. It can be rough on anyone attempting to break out with a new product. Materials, methods of lay up, and different techniques all to learn at the expense of filling up trash cans with expensive materials. I have dumped thousands of dollars into the land fill. It also requires you to work 15 to 19 hours a day, 7 days a week sometime, and while trying to ovoid burn out. All just part of the game really.
The light gray color on the surface, and the gray interior of my bare castings came about from learning that black resins look cool. But pigments also can cause cure inhibition issues, making them very expensive for something that will get painted anyway. After all. the film used helmets often had white gel coat and they were fine after paint.
Not sure as to what shin buck you have, or it's origin. Maybe some PM's would be easier. I could take a look at this buck and maybe hand the project over to a professional, like MonCal to thermal form parts.
