Provisional deadline/Halfway project

Provisional deadline/ halfway project tutorial hand in photographs

Chemiwood turned tire

This picture shows the turned chemiwood tire with a aluminium powder, fast cast alloy in relation to a standard easyflo 60 fasy cast alloy witht he mock up chavant tire.

Shaping problems / measuring tools

By quickly massing out my bodywork i began to take more measurements to ensure placement of smaller grooves and curves were falling in the correct place. I used a rig over the top of the Sculpt made by a former graduate of this course along with a set of large calipers i made to take measurements where necessary. Because i could use the CNC to cut my blue foam maquette there are areas of the model that are unseen by the latter method used. areas such as the bonnet, windscreen, and rear curvatures of the car to name a few have been uncaptured by the use of 3 dimensions when cutting the blue foam and have had to be altered by stripping the clay back and amending the blue foam basis.

Alloy pulls and tyre plans

3d print, 2 part plug mould and first fast cast pull

mock up of tire size and wax tread idea

So here is the mould i created from my initial Objet 3d printed alloy. From this i have since had multiple pulls in different types of fast cast, some with aluminium metal powders which i will play about with later to decide on a final alloy finish. I created a rough green chavant tire which the alloy fits snug inside working against dimensions from my drawings of around 74mm diameter with a 48mm inner core. I intend to turn a cleaner copy from chemiwood with the same dimensions - 4mm from the exterior dimension. this is because i have a 2mm thick wax sheet as shown in picture which i intend to laser cut a desired tread patterns from and roll around the exterior face of the chemiwood tire. from this i can then add branding and tire sizes and final mould the tire for multiple pulls in what i imagine will look best in gun foam rubber. (testers to come). I believe this will give the best appearance and look great for believable scaled down tyres

Powder printing Recaro seat

This short video shows The Powder printer working on my Recaro seat .stl file.
Unfortunately the mesh was to thin to survive the print and the outcome was a failure. At this stage i have now used all 3 of the 3d printers available to us here at AUB and have a much better insight to project managing different 3d models on each of the printers. At this stage i intend now to leave the Recaro seat unfinished in order to put more time in to the exterior components of my model, as i may not get round to the interior and it is still early days in terms of being able to foresee whether i will in fact have sufficient time to model the interior as well.

Le Beau Touché massing out

Because my blue foam was cut from a rough modelled shape of the car,  it means i can quickly find the shape i need by padding out with in between 0.5 and 1cm. I am trying to follow various books and take more relevant pieces from each to achieve the method of working best suited to my project but it seems as a first port of call i am best to mass out my car body leaving it to be quite gestural until i get further down the line to refining and more accurately taken measurments.

Le Beau Touché shaping

By making an array of tools similar to those i have found to be used in various automotive design books, i will be able to mass out my car body structure a lot quicker and eventually smooth the object a lot easier. By using the spot welder and various tools in the metal workshop i have made 3 different sized scrapers. I also purchased blue steel and rubber kidney which i can use in a similar way for curved edges.

Alloy Moulding

The Alloy print from my remodel was a success using the Objet printer and where replications could be made quickly to achieve the amount of these i need for my model this method would be expensive in comparison to quickly moulding them. The moulding proccess also means i will be able to play around with metal powders in order to get a high polished cast version of my alloy if so desired rather than a gloss painted rim. I quickly began this moulding proccess and didnt get a snap of the 3d printed alloy but will upload one when my mould is complete. i have designed my mould with multiple breathers as a 2 part box plug mould. this will allow for my to pour my material into a large gap, then merely slowly lower the blue plug visible on the picture inside to push out the unwanted air through the breathers. Videos to follow.

Blue Foam maquette alternative

Because of the queue for the CNC being too long and the fact that multiple companies outside of university haven't got back to me about the chance to outsource there machinery i have chose to hand make the individual pieces however old fashioned it may be, it is inevitably going to save me time and not be to dissimilar to the latter. I chopped the model into equal 25mm pieces in rhino 4.0 and laid out according holes i would drill into the foam later to connect the pieces together stronger and make sure the alignment is correct. The following pictures show this process from computer to finished maquette ready for Y2K automotive chavant a.s.a.p.

Brembo re-model and print

Because the file i made for my 3ds max project wasnt specifically intended for 3d printing the file was taking too long to mess around with similar to the alloy so i decided to make a new version of it to save time. I chose to get multiples printed on the Objet printer because of the size. As they were small objects the detail could be captured with this printer and the cost was low enough for me to not bother moulding and casting my multiples needed. for just £4 i printed the 4 i needed plus a spare. 80p each and well worth the time taken. i wouldnt have any idea how i'd go about making a like for like model part without the 3d printers.

original Brembo brake model

New style printable Brembo's

Objet 80p print out

RepRap

The video shows a time lapse of the beginning process of the RepRap.

3d printing

Unfortunatley the 3d print of the Recaro seat on the RepRap wasn't successful. The machine was knocked 1/4 of the way through printing and stopped the machine. this doesn't matter too much because the material wasn't setting quite right for the model and the print may have been useless anyways. the Recaro seat model lends itself to being printed on the powder printer because of the complexity of the shape and need for more support material. i will be trying this print first thing tomorrow and hopefully have a powder print by the end of the day. The image below shows the 1/4 finished Recaro seat from the RepRap machine which serves as nothing more than a test piece for this project.

CNC : queues/out-sourcing/alternatives

According to my time plan i made last week i had a provisional deadline to have the blue foam rough for my bodywork, modeled and CNC'ed by Friday just gone. It is now Monday and i have been informed there are 2 people in the queue before me who have fairly large scale work and i could have to wait until Wednesday next week. Although i have saved time on my provisional deadline for alloy modeling and printing and jumped ahead with aspects of the interior, a week and a half is generally going to be too long to wait to begin sculpting the body of the Exige. I am currently looking in to outsourcing from a company in Poole called Millturn CNC, and am awaiting a quote for my jhob buyt i anticipate this will be too costly for me and i may have to find other jobs to fill the time until i can CNC, find a way to get in a gap in between users or use an alternate and old fashioned method of bulking out my maquete. 'Clay Modeling' by San-ei Mook gives detailed descriptions and step by step methods on how automotive models of all sizes have been created for decades. In a similar way to my CNC method i would use blue foam like the following images cutting profiles of my car and gluing them together. This would be more work from my drawings from scratch but may save me time in the long term. Negatives about this Method are that the maquete may have to be smaller thus using more clay and leaving it harder for me to create a general shape of the vehicle.

Axon 2.0

Axon 2.0 conversion screenshot

So Axon 2.0 is the Program i need to use to convert my .stl file into a .bfb file type. This is what the Rep Rap printer will read in order to crate my file. It has given me an estimated time of 10 hours to print at a cost of 45p if we did not get this service free from uni. At a considerably cheaper price but similar time frame to the Objet, This Reprap of the powder printer are definitely to correct choice for creating an object that needs further physical clean up and clay modeling. I intend to start this job first thing tomorrow morning in order to get the job done in 1 day. Whilst my seat and alloy are printing i have time to address the problem that is my Brembo brake and also the possibility to Boycott CNC blue foam maquette cutting.

3d modelling problems

So the file for the alloy is now unusable and past salvation as I've been mucking around trying to edit it through rhino, 3ds max, and Netfabb over the weekend. I decided to merely create a new alloy from scratch to ensure the file would print correctly. The Recaro seat file i downloaded took some editing (a lot) but with the help of Netfabb i was able to fix the model and make it printable. For some reason however the Brembo disk brake i modeled during 2nd year for my 3d vis unit is not printer friendly and will need some further edits which i intend to do whilst waiting for the Cnc queue. For the Objet printer the resin material is 35p per gram and the support jelly 25p per gram. This brings my new model alloy in at a price of £20 which i have gone ahead with and will be printed later today. The Recaro seat if printed on this same machine would come in at £120, £60 of which was support jelly. I could alter the file type to print the file in 2 halves but for the large resin price it still would not be beneficial to me as this seat need sculptural work afterwards and this machine is better used for finished items. Instead i will be printing the seat on the Rep Rap 3d printed for free, and also trying the same file on the powder 3d printed which would normally be a price of around 1/4 the Objet (£30) but as the machine needs to be fixed and tested i can use my file as the test piece thus getting it for free.

Add caption

New Alloy Modeled with the use of the Tech drawings for Lotus Exige cup 260

3d model problem solving

When i tried to get an estimate for my 3 3d printed parts the programs test whether the file will print and mine wouldn't due to unclosed gaps in the model. I have found a piece of free software called Netfabb which should help me in finding the areas of my model and stl. file that need fixing in order to go ahead printing. if i can get the files sorted i may be able to print tomorrow so that the 3 prints are made over the weekend and ready for monday. I have found a great guide for this proccess online at
 http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/how_to_use_meshlab_and_netfabb

CNC queue means 3d modeling/printing

I have all the files and materials needed to CNC my 4 car parts out of blue foam but need to wait until the machine is free. i am using my time to model aspects of the car i intend to 3d print. i have previously created a Brembo disk brake for the 3d vis unit of my degree which i will use but i have also been working on creating an alloy. I have found a Recaro seat for free download on turbosquid.com which i aim to print and adapt in a physical form before moulding in order to cast 2 unique Recaro race seats. I may find other interior aspects lend them self to 3d print technology but until i get close to the interior modeling next term im just biding my time with this until i can begin sculpting.

Rough Mould Plan

rough mould plan created in paint with tech drawings

The dark red top skin will be the initial silicone butter on mould for the first half of the 2 part mould. To reduce the amount of fast cast used and leave room for interior parts of the model i intend to create a 2nd part to the mould which essentially has 3 plugs to reduce the amount of material and reduce weight of the model too. The middle lighter pink plug will leave room for the interior section of the model of which most aspects will be able to slot in through the underside gap and sit correctly in place. the front and rear bumper plug will reduce the amount of material used and also leave a gap for any electric if i see fit to wire in l.e.d's for the front and rear lights. I will put necessary amount of breather holes in the plug/bottom half of the 2 part mould to allow air to escape. The idea is pour the p[plastic in to the first part of the mould and then push in the 2nd part and quickly fasten tight to keep accurate shape for the cast.

Doors and the roof panel will be sculpted as part of the bodywork and then separated for moulding.

CNC Prep

I have used the drawings purchased through theblueprints.com to create a 3d bulk inner core for my Exige bodywork sculpt. The mass has been split up in to 4 pieces lay down ready for cnc cutting. i had to do this within a boundary of 800mm x 400mm an no more that 105mm high. the sections would have been just over 105mm high if i split the car straight down the center so i have had to split it in to 4. these pieces will be cut out of blue foam which will then be stuck together so i can begin sculpting on my bodywork in le beau touche.

Making intentions

I intend to sculpt the main bodywork of the car in le beau touche hard grade chavant clay similar to traditional methods found in 'Clay modeling' by San-ei Mook and 'Automobile design techniques' by Frederick Hoadley. The present methods in automotive sculpting hasnt changed much over the years although i hope to bring a shortcut to the massing out skeleton with new technology. I am going to cnc a rough model in blue foam of my car which i will build from the tech drawings i have. This will give me a rough slightly smaller version of the car which i will clad in around 10mm of le beau touch to produce the final form. This must be made and then chopped up in sections where appropriate for moulding. I will mould the roof section separatley and quite possibly the doors too as to be able to make opening doors and a removable roof through which the audience car see the interior.

automotive le beau touche sculpting

I think certain aspects of the car and smaller parts lend themselves to 3d printing and  laser cutting. I hope to model an alloy, and disk brake for the car which which i will then 3d print, mould, and cast with metal powders to reach my desired result. The tires will be cast in gun foam and initially sculpted using softwar and cnc'd which can then be rolled around the 4 alloys. Some areas of the car will be sculpted and layed up in carbon fiber such as the wings and spoiler of the car. As the time frame is quite tight i am still unsure at this stage to the extent of the interior modeling but have initially planned for it and still hope to manage my time well enough to see my plans through to a result which best demonstrates a usage of multiple skills to acquire a high specification model. If the interior modelling does happen i intend to 3d print and sculpt various aspects whilst keeping the overall design simple but effective.

Time Plan

I have created a time plan for my project and included the real deadlines along with my own personal goals in a lighter shade of orange, i have planned extra time for each step leaving more room for un-practiced aspects of the project to allow for any disruptions.

Reference material

Along with the tech drawings it is important to have as many 3 dimensional visuals possible when sculpting. i have been able to gain a large number of useful files through website image searches but i also intend to contact lotus about a visit to a showroom to take my own photographs/ see if they can send me further drawings/turnarounds. Forza 4 for xbox 360 holds a list of cars you can take photos of in game aswell as creating short videos and getting a real feel for different curves and shapes of the vehicle. This option is perhaps second best to having an accurate 3d model made by myself but this would be a project in itself and would not be a path i would like to take. Another option is buying a 3d model through a website such as turbosquid.com but the cheapest i could find was around £45 and is too expensive for its worth to me during this project.

Turbosquid model

Tech Drawings

I have been able to find accurate technical drawings of the Lotus Exige cup 260 i intend to make on the website www.theblueprints.com . The use out be able to outsource certain aspects of my project will save me time which i intend to better the final result. i can work from the drawings to ensure a better replica model is created with accurate measurements. With a small cost of around £7 i have been able to bypass a task easily achievable my myself  because it would have been a time consuming aspect of the project. now i am able to jump right in to further project planning using these drawings.

Action Plan for Fmp

I propose to make a 1:8 scale model of the Lotus Exige Cup260. The Following model will not only give me the opportunity to continue sculpting and mould making but further increase my knowledge into techniques such as 3d printing, cnc, and high quality paint finishes. The project will see me sculpting in various materials never used before to create a hard edge product finish model. By straying away from Character design/Sculpting i aim to achieve a broader knowledge of transport design modeling and improve my sculpting abilities.

I aim to create a true likeness of the exterior of the car but will model the vehicle in such a way that if possible in the time scale i can move on to model the interior of the vehicle as well. Further more i intend to run simultaneously a character design project of around a 2 week duration to show more variety at my stand at new blades this year.

The beginning

I am 4 weeks in to my Final Major Project for BA (Hons) Modelmaking and i spent the first two weeks considering the focus for the project. The following two weeks i have spent on work placement with Propshop at Pinewood studios. This gave me another first hand chance to broaden my knowledge of a desired career path and gave me time to reflect on my own project and what i want to achieve gain from the project.