I’m getting so bad at writing this blog that it’s getting annoying. I do write the occasional facebook post that ends up in the RGB group but that isn’t enough really. Worst of all, I have to read back and remember where I’d got to. The answer is usually that it wasn’t that different from now really…
All the same there is real progress to talk about this time. Last time, you will remember, I’d removed the moulds and ceremonially broken up the buck. The buck is in fact still sitting at the side of the house ready to be dumped into a skip that we’re hiring soon.
So, it was time to start making bits of bodywork. I’d decided to make some initial bodywork as fast as possible so that means a manual layup using polyester and CSM because I know how to do that. Later on the plan is to go carbon using resin infusion but this would give me a chance of going racing.
First step was to compound the moulds (code for splattering compounding gloop all over me) and then make yet more temporary fences for the ends of the centre parts of the bodywork. This time, though, I included some little blocks to make locations for sinking catches into the bodywork and also some lumps which will make the parts of the bodywork lock together when they’re in place. In the photo above you can just about see the shiny mould and the various blocks in the photo at the top of the page.
After yet more mould release was splattered around, I put first some grey gel into the mould and some boring old CSM with polyester resin, all done by hand. There’s the result in the next photo.
Then I waited, and crossed my fingers. If the moulding didn’t release I was going to throw my toys out of the pram. Luckily, later on I shoved some moulding release wedges into the edges of the mould and out popped a part. This is in the next photo and represents the end result of god alone knows how much work. (If you hear me talking about doing some new bodywork, please arrange for someone to hit me, will you?)
Having done all that, you’d think I’d stick it on the car, wouldn’t you?
I didn’t. In fact, I put the part back in the mould and laid up yet more moulds to make permanent end fences. Here’s one of them going off.
It was therefore back on the treadmill and I made two centre part mouldings and four new end fence moulds. So far, then, that means I (with lots of help from Adrian) have made 16 separate moulds. What’s more, I haven’t finished yet. What’s more, I’ve just about gone through 100kg of moulding tooling resin and huge amounts of glass matting.
Oh, and gloves and brushes; literally hundreds of each of them. There are people who do this for a living; I hope they get paid a lot of money…
With all that done it was time to get the car out of the garage. So, with some ceremony, a marching band and dancing girls I put some springs on the car and lowered it to the ground and pushed it out of the garage!
Here it is. Yes, I know the wheels are dusty but so am I, and the house, and the garden, and pretty much everything really.
All the same, I could now bolt all the main moulds (not including the end fences) back 
together to make one socking great mould, as in the next photo. I couldn’t easily get it into one photo, as you can see. You can just about see the back panel which I made out of a large piece of contiboard.
You can probably see that there’s lots of dust here, again. However, I set about cleaning up the mould with cleaner, following which I retired for a while to recover from the fumes. Then it was out with the compounder again and then more cleaning up to get rid of the all the compounding paste.
I then put the centre moulding into place in the mould as they’d make the centre fences for the front and rear parts. With a lot of help from Adrian we then put a LOT of resin and CSM all over the place.
And then I waited again, and waited. And then I tried to release the parts. It didn’t go too well for a while until Adrian popped in on his way home from work. That provided the muscle needed and out came this.
(Yes dear, I know it’s in the hall but you were away, it was back in the garage before you got home and it’s on a piece of cardboard to protect the floor. The dust is just fine, honest…)
All the same, that was a great relief. The rear moulding also released pretty well. With that it was back to trying to tidy up a bit until I could get the car back in the garage; it had had to spend a couple of days on the drive.
As you can probably see the front and rear parts are now standing upright. This is so I can made the final four moulds (yes, that’s a total of 20) for the permanent end moulds for the front and rear bodywork. That does mean that each part will be able to be made without needing temporary fences or using another part to act as a fence.
In the meantime, I have actually been doing some other things. In the foreground ofg that photo you can probably see that most of the engine plumbing is now in place. What’s more, I’ve bought a new engine loom and I’ve been cutting out of that all the bits that I don’t need, which is actually most of it.
With luck this weekend will see the last of the moulding and good progress on the car itself. I can them start trying to mount the bodywork, eeek…