Fourth haul (3/11/10 - 8/11/10)

I wish I could say I've come on leaps and bounds but upon relfecting about last week it strikes me as to how little was achieved. This is mostly thanks to the trouble with the internal compartments. What was suppose to be an easy task of vacuum forming turned out to be a nightmare in waiting. The internal compartment itself consists of a rectangular block, with a taper of 1.5 degrees on all sides, along with a 5mm fillet around the top and a 10mm fillet down the sides. Little known to me at the time, this slight taper would be the cause of all my grief. Once I had machined it, I immediately vacuum formed it, but trying to get it out proved a nightmare, resulting to literally cutting the shell in half to get it off the former:

Having talked about possible alternatives I went with the most obvious choice; sanding and spraying the former to a perfect finish, thus giving a better shell finish plus making it easier to slide out. This wasn't the case however as it still proved impossible to remove without damaging the shell. Going to the other possibility of drilling a hole through the former, which the air gun can fit so that I can hopefully blow the shell off, unluckily I didn't have time to try this out last week. Worst comes to the worst I'm going to have to fibreglass cast it, which is a lengthy process that I'd rather avoid.

Having spent far too much time on it I've started this week on the different foot, working back with heat bending and jigs. I've got half of the jig completed so far, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have it finished by tomorrow along with the heat bent pieces.