Main Mold Design Sprint (Tub)

Owned by Michael Hanley
Last updated: Feb 08, 2023
2 min read

Goal:
Design and optimize the foam plug (2 halves, left and right side) for the main Aerobody mold, as shown in figure 1, then break it up into machinable parts that can fit within our foam blocks (size of 95.9”x23.9”x3.9”), as shown in figure 2.

Figure 1. Foam Plug
Figure 2. Breaking Up Mold into Machinable Pieces

Mold Process:

Once the foam plug is machined and assembled, then we’ll a fiberglass wet layup to create a strong and reusable female mold of the car, shown in figure 3. Once the female fiberglass mold is complete then we do a carbon fiber infusion

 

Features That Should Be Included:

  • All cut up pieces of foam must fit within the blocks of foam with no negative draft angles

  • The nose, side and tail must be able to easily attached and removed from another

  • Fiberglass mold should end up with a flange on the right plane of the plug and on the top plane of the plug

 

Ideas On How To Optimize For Cost:

We could try to reduce foam costs by removing foam from the blue area as shown in figure 4. Any ideas are welcome to attempt and reduce the cost of the mold while still maintain it’s original purpose.

Helpful Training Packages:

Please see Molds 101 and Surface Modelling 101 training sessions with the links down below, they will do a great job of showing how to make a proper mold!

Molds 101: Molds 101 Session Concepts and Modelling (10-02-2022)

Surface Modelling 101: Surface Modelling 101

Aero Model:

 

Optimised model: