For this project, I was tasked with fabricating a toy car based on our models that we had designed in a previous Manufacturing class. The main requirement for this was that the car had to have at least one vacuum formed, one resin casted, and one wood bending component to it.
The first step to this project was ensuring that my car had looked proper in regards to making sure it could actually be fabricated. In doing this process, I was able to work out things such as sizing the car down to half of it's size, making it about 8 inches in length, rather than 13 or so. Additionally, I was able to also make sure the holes for axels were properly aligned. Once this was complete, I was able to get started on forming my parts.
The first piece I focused on was the vacuum form part. For this, I went in and made a buck to form the part around, by making the inverse of the part in Solid Works. Afterwards, I was able to CAM the file in Solid Works and then proceeded to use a CNC machine to mill it out. Once that was complete, I was able to cut the excess off using a bandsaw and then was ready to vacuum seal.
At this point, I used a Clear PETG plastic to form over my newly CNC'd buck. Once I completed this, I removed the buck off of the plastic, and then cut the excess off with a bandsaw. I then cut to the edge and sanded the top edges of the part which would be used as a tray on my car.
Once I had cut to the edges, I was ready to paint the inside of my tray. I decided to paint only the inside to give it color, yet have it still be reflective in the light, as well as add a cool effect to have the paint show through the clear and on the outside. This also would help damage prevention when the car would be played with, there would be less likely chance for it to be scratched up from the outside.
The next piece of the project I worked on was resin casting the wheels. Firstly, I 3D printed a singular wheel with regular PLA plastic. Afterwards, in order to make a silicone mold of it, I sanded and then primed it to make it as smooth as possible. At that point, I mixed my SMOOTH-ON silicone and input my wheel at the halfway mark. I then let it set so it would freeze in middle and then poured the second half. Afterwards, I cut the silicone mold in half and was able to use that to pour my resin into it to make individual resin wheels.
I was then able to pour resin mixture after mixing it into the hole I created within the silicone mold to then form my wheels individually.
Once I formed all of my wheels, I had to sand them all down as due to the nature of my silicone mold being cut in an uneven way, there was a lot of excess that came off on the wheels. I use a knife to cut parts of it off, while then sanding and priming, and then painting them all black to finish them off. I then drilled 0.125 inch holes into them to make my axles fit into them.
The last part of the project was to now make my wood bending piece. The first step to do this was to make the buck for bending the wood around. First, I took various scrap pieces of wood and glued them together, making the main middle part, then cutting and sanding it. Afterwards, I cut holes in the bottom to add my wings to the side, which I also cut down and sanded.
Next, I began testing out various templates out of chipboard material to see what would fit. I made the templates in Adobe Illustrator and then laser cut them out. Afterwards, I glued them together and used a vacuum bag seal technique to fold them around. It seemed to have been going well, so I then began to add the wood veneer. However, this proved to be very difficult to do, as the wood kept breaking. As a result, I decided to switch around my design by making my wood bending into two separate parts, one in the middle and then the bumpers that folded around as their own pieces that would then be screwed into the main piece.
Once I had solved this issue, the rest of the process was rather streamline. I was able to easily bend my wood around with no issues, as there was no two different grains the bends were going into. Afterwards, I sanded down the parts to make them uniform using machine sanders. After, I then gave all three of my wood bending pieces a waxed finish.
Once that was complete, I decided to add decals to my main part of the car, using a water-slide on technique. However, this proved to be difficult as they kept sliding off or scratched off, so I opted to use vinyl decals by using a vinyl cutter.
I then cut down my axles using a hacksaw and sanded them down to make the ends not be as sharp.
It was now time to assemble my car. I put every piece together, putting my wood bending pieces together using screws. I drilled holes in the sides of them for the axles to go through. I then put the axles through those holes and the tray rested on top of them. I then added the wheels on and pushed through the push caps to finish it off.
