Model update. Hold your breath..

Okay guys, this is a long one so bare with me here.  Where I left off in the last post I had just fixed up a few thing that i weren't happy with and was ready to redo the carbon fibre.

Before I get into that, I got the final piece that I needed to be printed.  This part is to allow me to bend the display screen cover to the profile that i want.  The polycarbonate screen cover will be heated and then sandwiched between these two parts in a vice and left to cool.  

The quality of this print is far inferior to the previous print where I highlighted the pins.  You can see that pieces have chipped off and the grain on the flat surfaces is extremely course.

On to the carbon parts.  In the last post I had painted the molds and sanded them to a smooth finish.  In order to further fill surface imperfections and allow the carbon parts to be ejected once the resin cures I had to wax the molds.

Good old Mothers.  Prep cut, polish and carnuba wax.

Here the molds are waxed and ready to go.

I would have waxed these at least 10-15 times each, so they did end up with a mean sheen :)

primer filled the display mold to compensate for the horrible quality of the print.

The fun bit, or so you'd think.  In the image below I'm fairly sure the resin has been applied to the molds and is waiting to semi cure before applying the carbon and a wetting coat of resin.  At first the resin didn't want to stick and was forming little pools.  At this stage I was freaking out and was hurrying to try and even it out.  I eventually got the resin to cover the molds consistently, and left them to semi cure.

The resin dried to a 'tacky' stage far sooner than I expected so again, freaking out, I had to apply the carbon before there was no 'tack' left in the first coat of resin.

Got it all together and clamped in the mold.

Pegs :)

While I'd had some left over resin I quickly waxed a piece of stray timber and sloped a bit on.  I later pull this off to see how easy it gave way and too my surprise, it came off with extreme ease, filling me with a bit of hope, false hope it turns out.

It came time to remove the carbon from the molds and surprise surprise, it didn't just fall out of the mold when a stray breeze wafted past.  Half/all of the paint from in the mold stuck to each carbon part.  Not the end of the world, as the shape of the parts would still be accurate, but annoying never the less.

(I do have a rad video, that goes for the better part of an hour, that features me struggling trying to get these things apart but turns out a video that length in 720P is 2 and a bit GB so i wasn't about to upload it lol.)

I managed to cut myself two or three times, each time adding another pair of gloves of differing materials.  Additionally I wasn't stoked about the fact that there was tiny carbon fibres flying around the place and lots of them all over my skin, but hey my lifespan isn't going to reduce itself.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

So after a bit of cleaning/scraping/light sanding...

This is what was left...  Cant complain about that...

Time to make these buggers fit with the rest of the family.

Dremel time. (Insert darth Vader joke/line here)

The fit was okay, but not good enough, so i whipped out the trusty bog.

Even though the photos don't look flash, the fit is decent, and i need to stop somewhere or id go on forever trying to fix imperfections.

(Still kicking myself for not using the abs printer for these parts, the fit would have been perfect straight off the bat, grrrr.)

So the shell parts are currently sitting downstairs with hopefully the last coat of primer they will ever receive, then it's colour/clear buff and polish, simple.

I have definitely spent a few hours on this sucker now.  I will be very happy when its sitting in its box on a pedestal with the ambient glow of talksteer...

Looking at the time, I should go to bed, have to leave for work at 8am.  I'll see you all tonight for Mike's.  Night night.

Brad