The molds are well on there way to completion now. It's been an incredibly time consuming process, with the preparation taking the majority of the time, but hopefully it will all become worthwhile when the final pieces come out of the mold for the first time. We have been photographing the process and various stages, but have waited to upload them until we can put a few up to tell the story.
Above, we have the tank cover. This is a split mold comprising of 3 pieces, in order to get the final part out. This photos was taken as the last side had cured, with the initial trim having just taken place. At this point, it hadn't been released and we had no idea of how successful the process had been!
This is the underside of the tail unit, again molded in 3 pieces to allow it to be easily released. The underside (surface you are looking at) was laid up first, then trimmed, with the other two pieces laid up afterwards (see the un-cut fibreglass around the trim line).
The top side of the tail unit, all trimmed and ready to be released from the buck. Note the aluminium taps molded in place in order to make the release easier on the flanges.
Next up to go through the process is the bellypan. Here it is all waxed up with the aluminium flanges attached (these are necessary to create a clean line for the split mold). All the edges have to filleted to create a smooth finish on the final part (should be using filleting wax, but modeling clay seems to work just fine). Below shows some of the locating bosses that get molded in, in order for the two parts to relocate in the same place every time. This has to be done on each part of the mold and on every piece of bodywork, so you can see where the time goes!
Anyway, progressing well, just half a dozen more to do! Back to it . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment