Making me a carbon fiber valence **edit errr something. making something sometime.

[gotaloveRWD]

haha im glad your realistic about the updates!
I'm sure you could get some people to buy some of these
id be interested
maybe id use it unlike the roll cage! haha

[itskingsteelo]

holy shit, this is awesome, if all goes well you should get into the business of selling CF stuff

[Wergen7]

Thanks fellas!

[AbsorbantNut]

really cool stuff going on here!

[glnr13]

wow, that's badass. very cool to see the process.

[Wergen7]

About time again that I put in an update. Class is over and I'm at the internship portion of school. More on that in a moment. So it took forever to get myself on the CNC with 17 other damn people in the class at the same time. If you like all nighters, may I suggest purchase and sharing of a CNC. What aggravates me the most is that I wasn't able to finish my valence in class, only cut the molds, on the last day, actually after the last day. I could rant for hours. In the end I'm just glad I could cut the molds, the rest I'll do later.

The following are some shots of the process.

Here is the stock pieces made of MDF. Pretty heavy stuff I think I used almost four 4x8 sheets so these girls weighed in near 200lbs I'd guess. Pretty awesome to lug around the shop. Those on top are the separate pieces for the brake ducts which I don't have pictures of finished, had to do those separate.

[IMG][/IMG]

Before all that I had to make tool paths for the mold in RhinoCam, a plugin to Rhino. The following two videos are of a tube you'll see in a second, rough cut pass then finish cut pass, both in super fast motion. That tube took more like 3 hours maybe more. The valence all said and done was about 12 hours+ machine time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pyUvQ9sG2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG4QjYxza60

And if you want to know what 12 hours is like watch this entire 5 minute video and get a grasp on it. It moves half a millimeter each pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apy5i4mweiM

Anyway, here's the middle section all set to roll in the machine:

[IMG][/IMG]

Then we have it at the end of the roughing pass:

[IMG][/IMG]

Now half way through the finish pass:

[IMG][/IMG]

Now I had to do some trick shit to get the side pieces to work without the collet hitting them and what not because of angles and stuff, since I was only allowed to use 3 axis, still mad about that. But one all nighter later and waalaa (I know the french don't spell it quite like that)

[IMG][/IMG]

So that guy looks just like that right now in my basement at home. It needs several hours work in order to be ready to pull a part off it but eventually it'll be as sexy as this:

[IMG][/IMG]

Which is a perfect segue into that air box I mentioned earlier, which I made much more progress on and I'm just gonna show it here because it's carbon fiber :) But yeah a lot of hassle and a bajillion molds later and I ended up with this image here, showing it in its rough form, I have to trim it up more and clear coat the hell out of it so it looks nice for the layman I'm making it for.. Plus I mean everything looks better with clear coat right? Unfortunately the in-mold clear coat didn't stick hence the shotty finish on the scoop

[IMG][/IMG]

So thats that. And yet again my life choices prevent me from working on this valence or my car since I'm now right near San Francisco on my internship for a month, then I may or may not move here and not work on my car even longer. Damn.

Thanks for looking! More updates in the next 30 years maybe.

[Wergen7]

http://iyrs.edu/

Don't be fooled by pictures of dirty hands, they don't take pictures when we're standing around.

[ncbrock]

More info on what school you go to? Interesting to see a program specifically for composite technology.

[Wergen7]

Oooooook long awaited update. I have my model basically 99% done (though every time I say that it turns out it's more like 2%). What you see in these images is the exact shape that will be cut on the CNC. The blue area is a flange which is used for a number of things when I'm actually laying up the material. I have moved the brake ducts to a separate mold for machining purposes (to make it possible). mmmm What else.....yes, im typing as i think theres no time for editing. I have yet to nail down the material that I'm going to use be it carbon fiber or fiberglass since weight can end up similar, cost is most certainly not similar, this is a non-structural component, and I plan on painting it. ah and I also moved the brake ducts outwards a bit like I said I would in the first post

Without further ado:


[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]


So I'm on break now and when I get back to class hopefully I will be cutting this thing out and actually doing it instead of looking at it in pixels, because that is quite old now.


And for those of you with the oddly specific combo of an e46 330ci with mtech2 front end, I'd quickly like to share what I'm whipping up for my good friend, "whipping" as an under-exaggeration of how difficult it has been. Not done yet.

[IMG][/IMG]

[stonea]

Definitely sub'd

[MPLFoster]

This is cool. Definitely interested in seeing what the final product looks like.

[BamaE30]

That looks really nice you should do a small production run...

[Wergen7]

If the printer is able to produce the uploaded design into straight car in fiber


This is awesome work man.

Not possible. A cnc is only a router that cuts things down, not like a 3d printer which prints things (usually only plastic unless you have significant cash flow). Carbon fiber comes as a woven cloth. 3d printing carbon fiber is one of those things that people are working on but doesn't exist quite yet. That answer the question?

[ak-]

Thanks! Not sure I understand your question

If the printer is able to produce the uploaded design into straight car in fiber


This is awesome work man.

[Wergen7]

That is straight up badass!

Q with regards to 3d mapping it, could you have it mapped and then spat out in carbon?

Thanks! Not sure I understand your question