Sunday, January 19, 2014

From Art to Part



Creating parts for my custom interior has been a very interesting challenge at time.  Having the correct tools really helps.  3D graphic software, a 3D Printer and experience doing fiberglass has really helped in creating parts that are unique to my car.  The following are steps I took to create the front passenger door power window switch holder.


First:  Create the part in my 3D software.  I use the open source tool Blender.org to create my 3d Models.  I’ve been using this tool for years and am very familiar with it.  Other tools, like Maya, 3DStudioMax or Google Sketchup will work too.  I’m just very comfortable with this too.

So, I created the model as seen here:



Then I export the model as a .stl file.  This file is then put through a “slicing” software (Slic3r) that uses the parameters of my 3D printer (print head size, type of plastic, etc.) and literally creates slices of the part along the Z axis that the printer can then print out.  This software creates a .gcode file.  This file is then put into another open source software package called Pronterface.  Pronterface actually drives the 3D printer based upon the slices defined in the .gcode file.  When the printer is done,  You get the following:



It took about 10 attempts to get the model to the right size and shape.  There is a bit of black magic involved here, but once you know what you are doing, it gets easier.

Once I got the finished print, I sanded it down so that the surface was pretty smooth.  I plan to cover it in carbon fiber, so it didn’t need to be perfect.  I just wanted to make sure I got the surface to a point that the adhesive would stick. This is the next step.

Step 2:  Applying the Carbon Fiber.  Because I was working with a pretty small piece that had some tight bends, I knew that I could not just lay the carbon fiber on the part and epoxy it down without using a vacuum bag technique.  So I opted to glue the carbon fiber down to the part using 3M 77 glue.  This glue is extremely strong and relatively easy to work with.  Here is a picture of the part and carbon fiber after spaying with glue:


 
Once the glue got tacky, I laid the carbon fiber over the part and made sure that it had set into all the nooks and crannies.



After the glue dried, I then put on the epoxy, in three thin coats.  I let each coat set up until tacky before putting the next on.  The key is to not put on so much epoxy that it runs and pools.  Otherwise you have a lot of sanding to do.  Here is a picture of the piece after the last coat of epoxy.



I let the piece set up for 48 hours before I started to wet sand the epoxy to get all the air bubbles and wavy surface out.  You don’t want to sand too much, otherwise yet get down to the fiber.  Here is the sanded piece:


 
Step 3: Lacquer and Final Sanding.  The final step is to spray the piece with lacquer and do the final finish.  I put on three coats of Lacquer from a spray can, letting each coat set up for an hour before the next.  I let the final coat set up for 24 hours then I started wet sanding with increasingly fine wet papers.  I started at 600, than went to 1200 and finally 1600.  Once I got the surface smooth, I using a polishing compound and finally a good automobile wax.  And voila, this is the final result:



I plan to use this same technique on my center console.  That will be in a subsequent blog post.