When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Glass, glass and more fiberglass!

With the styrofoam molds ready for epoxy and fiberglass, the only thing left was to start. All 4 of us worked on getting the cloth wet out and applied. We actually started with epoxy mixed with cabosil, as a thicker gel coat. This will hopefully fillet any deep cuts, allowing the fiberglass cloth to conform a little easier.
This was the point that I realized I never sprayed the foam with a mold release! I'm sure I'm going to pay for that later. At least the epoxy will be way stronger than the foam, so it shouldn't be the end of the world. Or that's what will help me sleep tonight!
We got one mold completely finished with 3 layers of cloth, for a minimum thickness of around 1/8" thick. I ran out of epoxy on the second mold after 2 layers. So I'll head to the fiberglass place in the morning to get one more gallon. It sucks a little as I wanted to demold them both in the morning, but it's all good!

I was able to get the mdf backer boards cut for the bases as well. We also got all the 2" stove bolts installed and threadlocked. Today was a great day in terms of progress, hopefully tomorrow will run smoothly as well!

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I have been receiving some friendly banter from my fellow creative friends, Dan Sawatzky and Doug Haffner about our friendly "sign build off" competition. The ribbing is well underway now, with Dan leading the charge on his rendition of our "Institute for the Study of Mechanical Marine Life" sign. I can't remember if we actually all placed a wager or not, but it will be fun.

 This is Dans render of the sign he'll be fabricating. Looks pretty nice!
However, there is something that I REALLY like about Dougs rebuttal, but I just can't seem to put my finger on it. Hmmm.........it might the composition.

 I won't be giving away any details on our entrance piece quite yet, as I would hate for Dan, and Doug, to put down their tools and find employment in a local donut shop :)
I would, however, buy my coffee from them if they did, but I would watch them like a hawk when they made it!

Let the games begin!
8)
JWO



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2 comments:

  1. Doug Haffner26 June 2013 at 16:31

    Cool. I'm sure you probably know this and you can say "Whatever Jay Leno/Norm from Cheers". I once sculpted some magic sculpt on top of a styrofoam head form..and had to figure a way to remove the foam from inside. It turns out that acetone will completely eat the foam and the resulting goo is relatively easy to remove. Just a thought.

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  2. plantfoodfan2414 July 2020 at 00:31

    Absorber materials usually absorb sounds of above 500 hertz. Rigid fiberglass is the most commonly used material to serve as an absorber. Acoustics Cyprus

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