Killer Colour!

 When it came time to paint our 2 Agent Chevaliers, there was some time spent on the order of things. Most people would think "just paint it" but there certainly has to be a thought out order. Especially because we're using a mix of automotive and acrylic paints. And we don't want to have to keep cutting in, over and over again. So armed with some sort of plan, the agents orange jump suit stripe was the first thing up. We used an automotive laquer for the stripe. This is a VERY durable paint, that dries quick, and we can mask over without fear of it pulling off with the tape.

Once the stripe had dried, we masked it off, and sprayed out the head in a flesh coloured acrylic latex.

The hair and glasses were all painted by brush, as taping a mask to the fresh latex would be far to risky.

The jumpsuit was the very last portion to get sprayed up. This was also done with an acrylic latex colour matched to the requested pantone number. The hairline also went through a couple of further revisions, but it was fairly simple to change.

The raised seam detail on the jumpsuit was the final paint portion to tackle.

With all the colour applied, the final step was 3 coats of an automotive clear coat. We used a satin clear coat, as I can't stand when sculptures like this suffer from "Gloss" :)

I love the surface sheen, and am so glad we went this route!

The very last steps were to use our Aves epoxy putty to attach the hand and gun assembly onto the ends of the arms, and cut the white vinyl graphics for the glasses and the spy wrist watch. No part of me had plans to paint the white on. Cutting vinyl gave a very hard and graphic edge, 100% opacity, and resulted in no brushmarks!

Then it was a matter of slipping them into their custom shipping crates, strapping them down, and sending them off to California to their new home in the sunshine!
This was a killer amazing project to get to work on, the clients were sooooooo easy to work with, and were very responsive to any questions we had, making the build timeline tick along without interuption!
I'd love to do way more of these kinds of projects!
8)
JWO

Sanding sucks!

We went with plate steel for the base of the 2 Counterspy agents. It needed to be heavy, but not ridiculous! I decided on 1/8" thick steel. Once the legs and torso were assembled with the armature inside, we welded it to the thick steel plate. This agent won't be going rogue any time soon!

Then it was just a matter of attaching the rest of the appendages. With the exception of the hands and gun. These will get attached at the very end, after it's all painted and clear coated. It would have been way to impossible to spray these guys with the hands in the way. We also left the silencer on his gun as a separate piece, solely to reduce the height of the shipping crate he would ultimately have to travel in.
There was quite a lot of sanding to do at this point. Lots of little spots that needed filler, and doing the final blending between the mated parts. I think Jody must have sanded her finger tips clean off!

The final prep state before paint was the primer. I really like the ease of use of water based finishes, but I really hate the fact that water-based usually means "crappy-based" on some projects. That's why on this job, we opted for a 'new to us' product. It's basically a spray able auto-body filler. Like runny bondo. You mix it with fiberglass resin hardener, spray it on, and it's hard in 30 minutes. Each layer can be sprayed upto a 1/16" thick without cracking when it dries! I sprayed up a nice thick coat on the two guys, then Jody and I headed to lunch! After lunch, I sprayed 2 more coats, giving us a minimum 3/32" hardcoat thickness! This turned our 15lb HDU material rock solid. The final guy felt like you were knocking on a piece of oak! However, it did leave a slightly textured surface (you can see it in the depression of the sunglasses) so that meant more sanding............

I'm comfortable enough in my marriage with Jody, to not let these sort of images upset me. But the old saying "what happens at the shop, stays at the shop" is something we live by :)
Poor Jody did the bulk of the sanding, and as much as it sucked, the final outcome was brilliant!

8)
JWO

Can I Get Some Hands Please!

I had purposely left the hands on Counterspy guy until last. I must have sliced these every which way but Sunday. In the end I decided that maybe having them FDM 3d printed would be the answer. Until I got the estimate. They wanted $1500 a set. That would have been 3 grand for just the hands! Clearly I need to start a 3d printing business....................
I decided to go back to the drawing board and not rest until I had solved it!

In the end, These were the sliced files in STL Slicer. This configuration eliminated 85% of the undercuts that I was trying so hard to avoid.

After I oriented the parts in Hex, I added my own tubular machining tabs, and exported them to Cut 3d for double sided machining!

The machining with a 1/4" BN went pretty quickly on both sides.

I was actually quite impressed with my slicing skills! Sometimes you need to see the finished part, outside the computer screen, to really get a grasp on things.

All said and done I was really happy with the final outcome. There was a fair amount of finishing by hand to remove the undercuts around some of the fingers, but in the end we certainly saved over having them 3d printed, and the outcome was just as good in my book!
8)
JWO

The Massacre continues.......

The heads on our 2 Counterspy guys progressed in the same way as the rest of the body part. Using the vector outlines that Aspire generates, gives me the profile for the second layer.

 Those second profiles get cut out, and glued on, then machined after the first layer. This lets the cutter in our Techno cut past the glue seam, leaving virtually no cleanup on a layered part. However, if I have a chunk of material that fits the bill without running a profile cut of the second layer, I'll save the extra step where I can for time :)

All in all, smart model slicing, and the cnc milling past the glue seams creates a pretty nice model in the end!

 It wasn't long in the end, before we started piling up body parts in the shop! I can tell you, it can be a bit overwhelming with all the pieces lying around, knowing you have to clean and assemble every single piece!

After the outside surfaces had been taped together, and the joints between all the left and right halves had been cleaned up, it was time to address the frame inside the spyguy!. I decided early on, that the track for the frame was probably easier to locate after the parts were made, instead off including them in the computer model. Once I had the tracks locations determined, I used a small hand router to mill out the pocket the framework would sit into.

The various angles were a bit tricky to cut from the 1" steel tubing, so it was a bit slower than I would have liked, but in the end, it always gets done!
 8)
JWO

Counter Spy Cuisinart!

When I said it was a whole day slicing Agent Chevalier, I should clarify. The actual slicing in STL Slicer was only a couple of hours.

The rest of the time was spent on file conversion, and part orientation. Hex doesn't import .STL, so that means I have to import, then save each piece out. I had to bring the pieces into Hexagon so I could orientate them on the XY. This takes a while :(
You can orient the pieces in Aspire for further slicing, but as the parts export from STL Slicer in the orientation they were created, it can be a bit of guesswork. A little off here and there, could lead to disastrous results on the final model.

Then it was just a matter of bringing them all into Aspire for layer slicing and machining!

In order to keep the hand finishing to a minimum after cutting, I strategically sectioned off each angle change in the model for toolpathing. This would let the cutter travel in the optimum direction for the final finish toolpaths. Then I combined all the separate toolpaths into one cut large cut file.

In order to keep the material waste to a minimum, I cut the second layer of the pieces as blocks, then glued them where they were required. Using our Techno, I cut the blocks to there final profile shape, then ran the second layer 3d toolpaths on just those areas. This kept the waste to a minimum.

 The process was repeated for every piece of spy guy that was thicker than the 2" HDU we were using.

It took a total of 10 hours to machine all the parts for 2 guys.

This also included running our LC3024 for any of the smaller parts that would fit on it.

With the exception of the hands. I left these until last, as they were the most troubling to deal with.......
8)
JWO