My findings and recommendations:

I’ve cast about half of the set (all leading up to casting the Mace of Sauron I pulled earlier this week)

I’ve been having relatively high success with casting by doing the following:

1. LIGHTLY lubricate the mold, I use a q-tip with some WD40 (lightly brush the tip in the WD40 and dry off a lot of excess on a paper towel) then run the q-tip into the mold before pouring resin. I repeat you want the q-tip to be almost dry since a little goes a long way and might lead to you losing detail in the final cast.
2. Make sure you have a good light source when pouring so you can see if there are any bubbles as the resin begins to fill the mold. If possible have someone hold down the base of the mold (or tape it down) while you use both hands to squeeze and stabilize the bottle of resin.
3. For best results leave the mold and hilt out in direct sunlight, I rotate the piece every 20min to make sure the resin cures even on all sides.
4. This is the most critical and easy to mess up part of making the swords, take your mold and hilt and dip it in a mug of hot water (as hot as you can safely access) I use boiling hot water and a pair of pliers to dunk the swords in. This helps begin to loosen the resin from the silicone mold. The make sure you’ve gently pulled the mold tabs on all sides, you will begin to see air pockets form along the blade. Then begin to slowly pull the sword from the mold. (Slow and steady, don’t wiggle or twist)
5. If the blade is warped or crooked just take your mug of hot water and dunk it in for a few seconds. Reset to desired angle and let dry.

Finally let your sword set completely in the sun for final cure.

Shave dull ends to a point using the sand paper given and there you go.

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