cement

final: cement 

for my final material i chose to use cement 

first experiment: casting cement with an oil witch will tint the color of the oil, giving the cement a different color, also along with this experiment i will try to paint the cement with different kinds of paint to get different surface.

second experiment: see how small i can cast an object with cement so i am going to make a small mold out of plaster or alginate.

third experiment: i am going to mold an object by pouring cement on top of a surface to get its texture 

Final Blue Foam

Below are a few visuals of the blue foam project as it came to a conclusion. After applying a couple layers of spackle and paint, Greg crafted sanding jigs. This was helpful for sanding smooth, flat surfaces and even radii on the curves of the form. We then applied one final layer of paint with the spray gun and left the Wii controller to dry overnight. The surface still has some irregularities, most of which are due from handling the blue foam (transit, storage, manipulation, etc.). Unless we put a hard finish over the blue foam, I expect it will continue to get dented and dinged. This project has taught me the value of sanding blue foam meticulously before applying spackle and paint. This then makes for very little sanding a revising later on while in paint mode.

Re: Final Project

the materials I would use would be
Smooth-On 300 Series
mdf/wood
yellow foam
mixing cup
styrene

Final Project Proposal

The material I would like to use for my final project is liquid plastic. I will be using smooth-cast 300 series plastic. For my three experiments I would first like to use the vacuum former to make a shape and fill it with the liquid plastic to see how it dries and fills the inside of the object. For my second experiment I would like to add texture to the liquid plastic to see if the material can have a different finish besides smooth and shiny. For my last experiment I would like to rotocast and make a cup. I would like to see how much liquid plastic I would need to make the cup usable.

Carbon Fiber

After researching carbon fiber i discovered that the process to make something is very long. you have to make the negative mold because you want the smooth finished look on the out side. then you have to apply layers of mold release wax so the CF comes off the mold nicely after curing. One they wax has been applied you apply the CF. There are three different ways that the CF can be applied. Wet Laying, which is applying the CF dry to the mold and then pouring the epoxy on it and spreading it over all the CF. Another technique is Induction. the dry CF is applied to the mold and then placed in a vacuum bag. then the resin is sucked into the mold by the vacuum. The third technique is Pre-preg. In this technique the CF cloth itself comes pre-impregnated with a thin layer of resin. This cloth usually needs to be kept at a rather low temperature to keep it from hardening/bonding, and then when it is layed up and heated it hardens and bonds with the other layers of CF. The technique i will be using is wet laying because it seems the least difficult. With this technique i have to test two different ways of finishing it, vacuum bagging or sand bagging. Vacuum bagging is when you place the mold with the wet layed CF in a bag with a vacuum attached to it. This pulls the CF closer to the mold and giving you a stronger more accurate end product. Sand bagging is placing bags of sand on top of the CF in teh mold to keep it in place and apply some pressure. something else i want to test is when making a tube like form should i create the shape itself and wet lay over top the mold or make a two part negative and wet lay those parts and connect them. Finally i want to test to see if i can you blue foam for the molds instead of yellow foam or mdf.

Materials i am gonna need for this are:
MDF
Yellow foam
blue foam
mold release wax
carbon fiber
epoxy
vacuum bag
sand
plastic bags
and prob more once i start the experiments





http://www.vaglinks.com/Docs/Misc/CarbonFiberHowTo2.pdf

http://www.instructables.com/id/SIZU7BLF7AVJ8SD/

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/9521-pics-carbon-fiber-seat-how-handmade-fsae.html