Model update..

I spent today working on my model a bit more, fixing up a few things and preparing for carbon fibre, take 2.

First, sanded back rough areas on the main unit and the display parts ready for final painting, pending fitment of carbon fibre.

I decided to see how good i could get the clearcoat on the back of the display unit, gave it a cut and polish and it came up nice and shiny.

Note, reflection in paint.

Also, this is what the writing will look like lit up on the display unit.

Then I got stuck in to the new batch of 3D printed pieces.  These bits are mainly molds for the carbon fibre. I also printed a complete model of both the main unit and the display.

The 3D printer had a new print head for this job and the quality of the build is quite impressive, the pins in the photo below are 0.8mm

I sanded up two new trim pieces that will have the carbon mounted on them.

The gap looks quite large here, but the carbon should extend past the edges a little bit to compensate.

This mold is for the lower carbon trim on the main unit.  The piece has an undercut and therefore the mold was made to separate in three parts for part ejection.

The mold will remain bolted together until the part needs to be ejected.

Primer filler on the molds.

Base coat in case the carbon fibre has any small gaps in the weave or slight transparency.

After sanding the primer filler on the molds they were nice and smooth, but I noticed there were tiny pores in the surface.  I probably could have just left them and the wax would have filled them, but I sprayed a guide coat on just be sure.

Sanded the guide coat.

This one came up particularly awesome, it is dead smooth and has no pores or any surface imperfections.  If I imagined what a mold should be like, it would be like this part :)

So next up is waxing these molds (for release) and then laying the carbon.  Lets hope that all this work pays off and the carbon parts turn out as planned.  Even if they don't, I've learnt alot by doing this, so I'm happy anyway. 

Let me know what you think.