Hello all. I haven't posted (or even lurked much) in a long time, but if I wait until I'm 100 finished with this little project it will take a lot more time. So I decided to share with my old friends here a 70% update on the de-mountable Richard Brothers Briarean light pods I've been working on for what seems like forever (especially to the person who loaned me his). Perhaps this will help someone out there with a similar task.
A fellow member graciously loaned me a pair of left and right pods to pull molds from. There are a lot of sources these days for mold-making and casting. And rather than pay too much at a local marine supply store I found a composite resin/fiberglass supplier in the industrial part of town, and they helped me a lot. My long learning curve would have been twice as long without them.
The original pods look like this, and use a pair of '58 Impala taillight assemblies.
The originals I had to work with need a LOT of work to bring them to a point where they were smooth enough to pull a mold from. And artist/sculptor friend recommended using a mold-release and Fix-All as an inexpensive mold material. It actually worked pretty well.
I didn't know how many sets I'd get out of the plaster molds so I set them aside for possible future use while I tried making flexible molds. I prepared the left and right pods by mounting them on foam core and filling modeling clay around the bases.
Here's where I stopped taking enough photos, but I used Smooth-On brand brushable mold-making material (tinted red/pink in the photo), and their brushable support-shell material.
Here I am putting them to the test, brushing (not the best method) two coats of gel-coat into the molds, followed by two layers of fiberglass mat and stiffening material.
A rigid mold may have been better - As you can see I had some filling to do where the mold pulled back a little from the support shell. And a few, especially the early ones, just came out bad. Someone who really knew what they were doing would have no problem. Perhaps in a few years 3D printing will be the way to go. For now I have a set for me and a set for the person who loaned me his. Next is to mount the hardware, drill the holes with the template I made, then save up for eight Impala taillights. I guess I'm working on the car from the top-down.
I better get working on the hardware so I can post a follow-up. If anyone wants to attempt this I can share some of the pitfalls I had. Or if anyone has some suggestions for improvement, I'd be interested.
A fellow member graciously loaned me a pair of left and right pods to pull molds from. There are a lot of sources these days for mold-making and casting. And rather than pay too much at a local marine supply store I found a composite resin/fiberglass supplier in the industrial part of town, and they helped me a lot. My long learning curve would have been twice as long without them.
The original pods look like this, and use a pair of '58 Impala taillight assemblies.
The originals I had to work with need a LOT of work to bring them to a point where they were smooth enough to pull a mold from. And artist/sculptor friend recommended using a mold-release and Fix-All as an inexpensive mold material. It actually worked pretty well.
I didn't know how many sets I'd get out of the plaster molds so I set them aside for possible future use while I tried making flexible molds. I prepared the left and right pods by mounting them on foam core and filling modeling clay around the bases.
Here's where I stopped taking enough photos, but I used Smooth-On brand brushable mold-making material (tinted red/pink in the photo), and their brushable support-shell material.
Here I am putting them to the test, brushing (not the best method) two coats of gel-coat into the molds, followed by two layers of fiberglass mat and stiffening material.
A rigid mold may have been better - As you can see I had some filling to do where the mold pulled back a little from the support shell. And a few, especially the early ones, just came out bad. Someone who really knew what they were doing would have no problem. Perhaps in a few years 3D printing will be the way to go. For now I have a set for me and a set for the person who loaned me his. Next is to mount the hardware, drill the holes with the template I made, then save up for eight Impala taillights. I guess I'm working on the car from the top-down.
I better get working on the hardware so I can post a follow-up. If anyone wants to attempt this I can share some of the pitfalls I had. Or if anyone has some suggestions for improvement, I'd be interested.
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