T4 Quad Headlight Project .......... latest update

[TURK]

I'm back !

............... Actually, I didn't go anywhere !



Just thought I would post another update of the project.




As I had learned a valuable lesson last time, ie; not to apply heaps of body filler to PU foam, I decided to use a slightly different approach. This time my plugs are the actual interior dimensions of the part required. As all materials seem to shrink when catalysed I was banking on shrinkage of 0.5mm or 1 mil ........ so I could feasibly apply at least 1mm of epoxy resin without too many problems.


These are the plugs now after just finishing applying my first coat of Pattern-Coat Primer. The 'Pattern-Coat Primer' is a type of epoxy resin that is aluminium based, so when it cures it cures solid and is heat resistant >>







Already things are looking promising, the resin went on quite thickly. But I'm not looking to add any thickness what so ever to these, so just a coat or two of resin should do it >>







Now we just wait ........... >>








It's inevitable that some of the resin will be soaked up by the PU foam, but that's the whole point. It will harden the foam and form a hard shell onto which I can put another layer on it. Any areas such as the gap where I glued the extra foam wedges, will be filled in at a later stage.






Now it's just a waiting game ............








TURK

[tallpaul]

Thanks mate, you the same 'Tallpaul' that' on the 'other' site ? as there's a 'Tallp@ul' on there as well



TURK

Yep. Same one. [emoji3]



Sent from my iPad using Just T4s

[TURK]

Yep. Same one. [emoji3]

Ah, good for you .......... eagerly awaiting your headlights, being as you've taken the steps to pre-order yours







TURK

[TURK]

Now it's just a waiting game ............

As this is not real time ......... there's no need to wait for the resin to cure !



After the resin had cured, usually 24 hours ....... I began flattening back, and spent the next few days sanding !






Things were beginning to look up. I find 'Pattern-Coat Primer' good stuff to work with, it's a very solid base but it's also quite easy to sand down, or 'flatten back' as it's known as. The object of the exercise is to sand down all the high spots, level with the low spots clearly seen in dark grey. You've just got to be careful that you don't sand down to the underlying foam plug >>







The entire surface must be smooth, there are no short-cuts here, no machines, and definitely no power tools. Best tools by far are your finger tips, as it's all done by touch and feel >>







When you've 'flatted-back' as much as you dare, you will still have certain areas that have low spots, those low spots will be filled-in later using body filler. I tried to complete at least one plug yesterday, but it got late and had to pack up >>







When the sanding resumed ( the following day ) ......... I had almost completed two plugs ready for the next stage. Just a close-up of the low spots that need to be sanded down >>











Some of you may find this very boring to look at, and I would agree, it's not much fun or even exciting to see or hear about sanding .......... but someone's got to do it ! It's OK for you lot, you just have to pay for these lights, I've got to make them ! It'll be very interesting further down the line when these plugs are ready for moulding, to look back at these pictures and actually see the finish that can be achieved using Pattern-Coat Primer.








Until then I shall continue sanding.

And I did ........














TURK

[Mr Nozzle]

Not boring at all mate, it's fascinating!

[TURK]

Morning folks,




And welcome to another update, I'm still logging my progress on the other forum so I have to keep this thread updated also. This stage is without a doubt a very long process, creating what will be a mould for a mould basically. The final result being proper vacuum forming male tooling plugs, so everything has to be absolutely spot on.








Last time I had almost finished sanding down one of the plugs, with only one coat of Pattern-Coat Primer on them, there was a fair bit left to do.


Most of the plug has been flatted back, but low spots can still be seen, particularly the bridge between the top and the bottom surfaces. Because of the large distance between those two levels, that without a doubt is where I would of got 'webbing', so by making that part of my structure I'm hoping webbing will be eliminated completely >>







At this stage I've really flatted back as much as I dare go, in some areas the underlying PU foam can already be seen. So the thickness of the resin is probably thousandths of millimetres thin at this stage, but that gets fixed in the next stages. In this shot the gap that bridges the top of the plug with the bottom can clearly be seen. The goal here is to blend those areas together so a nice smooth curve is needed >>







The fix is applying body filler to the low areas, so a skim of body filler is used. Paying particular attention the that curve >>







The transition from the top and the bottom must be flawless, and you also have to blend the sides in. One skim of body filler didn't do it, two applications were required >>







And then everything was sanded down to a nice smooth finish >>







At this stage it's a good idea to double check your measurements, as it's so easy to sand down too much from one particular area, one millimetre from here, and one millimetre from there, and things begin to get out of hand. I also took the opportunity of checking the available space for mounting the Hella headlight carrier frames. The two round marks you see on the paper template, indicate where the mounting holes will be for the bolts that will secure the mounting frame. Not a lot of room as you can see, but the mounting frames are installed from behind the completed part. I try not to leave things to chance so a lot of my preparation and construction that will follow, has been planned as meticulously as possible. That also includes the assembly of the final parts. In order for me to assemble the units effectively and accurately, the headlight units have to be installed from the rear of the mounting brackets. The galvanised steel frame you see in the picture on the left, will also help to strengthen the entire structure. The four 10mm holes are for the headlight adjuster screws.

The obvious benefits of having a quad headlight system is you can adjust all four of your headlight units independently, meaning your high beams can be aimed much higher, giving you a much longer distance of vision at night. Something that is not possible on a H4 dual filament bulb as in the T4's OE headlights. When adjusting low beams according to road traffic laws, the low beams are directed downward, so as not to blind oncoming traffic .......... this obviously directs your high beams downward also >>







It's also a good idea to check that both plug bases are identical, and that the footing is square ........... so far, so good >>







Now onto the next stage ....... second coat of Pattern-Coat Primer now that I have a sound base layer. You'll also notice that I have blue painters tape around the base of the plugs, I noticed from my previous resin application and then the sanding, that I wasn't getting a nice crisp edge around the footing, the tape also helps to stop the resin from leaking under the plugs and creates a resin lip that'll be much easier to sand ......... that was the theory anyway ! >>







The following day, now that the resin has had ample time to cure ......... I'm ready for some more sanding >>







Flattening back this time was a little easier as I had a level base from my previous resin application. I began by sanding the footing and getting those measurements bang on. I'm not looking at adding any bulk to these plugs at all, the entire process is to achieve a nice smooth finish. And getting those dimensions as accurate as possible as they will sit inside the OE headlight retainers >>







After I'd gone round the entire footing I flatted back the sides, leaving the tops till last. Doing it this way made it very easy to work out the radii required for the edges, as you can clearly see the difference between the light grey and dark grey areas >>







Everything was blending in nicely ....... >>







At this point it's a good idea to start checking your dimensions again, you can never over measure that's for sure, check and double check. In this shot you'll see that the plug is sitting on a piece of card, that card ( cardboard template ) is the exact dimensions as the interior of the OE headlight retainer, the red 'frame' around the card is 3mm ( the thickness of the ABS sheet ), so my plug has to fit nicely on the inside of the red lines .......... simple enough. When vacuum forming you'll get shrinkage from the material ( 3mm ABS ) that's guaranteed, and judging by the amount of shrinkage I've had from previous vacuum forming attempts, I figure about 2 to 2.5mm, that should leave me with a gap of about 0.5mm .......... but I'm banking on that as I need a little space for adhesive in order to get a good bond between the two materials >>







These are as smooth as I can them using 120grit sandpaper .......... now I'm ready for the next stage >>

















TURK

[TURK]

Hi folks,


Continuing from above .......

As with any project it's a process of stages, you complete one stage and then move onto the next stage. The sanding stage is long and laborious, but the more time you spend on it, the better the results will be. I've been sanding these plugs now for over a week ( about 6 hours per day ), but now I'm moving onto the more delicate sanding, the finishing.

And yes .......... more sanding !


The general idea of this exercise is to sand out the scratches left by the 120grit sandpaper. I never got the opportunity of using wet & dry sandpaper 'wet' before, as I'd been building my plugs out of MDF. So this should be interesting ! Using the wet & dry 'wet' is great, it cuts through the resin really well ....... too well actually ! >>







After a brief time with the 400grit sandpaper, I changed the water and began using 800grit wet & dry. The reason why you have to change the water is, as you progressively use finer sandpapers, the coarse grit from the previous paper is still in the water, and could scratch your finish. The finish I was getting was superb, it was cutting too much though, I know I wasn't looking at adding any bulk to my plug, just smooth was what I wanted, but I was getting very close to the underlying layers very quickly >>







After washing the plugs down with clean water again, and drying them off, I noticed just how much resin was removed simply by smoothing out the scratches left by the 120grit sandpaper. At this stage I really should of moved onto 1200grit sandpaper, but my resin coating must be down to mere thousands of a millimetre by now, so I decided not to go any further with the sanding. The plugs are very smooth as they are, they feel like glass actually, so I decided to move onto a rubbing compound. In the picture you can see some fine scratches, but you certainly can't feel them. The rubbing compound should make the polishing stage much easier and give me an even better gloss finish >>







Now onto the polishing stage .......... now you can really see the difference no lumps, no bumps, as smooth as can be ! Which is really what I'm after. All these procedures are leading up to making a silicon rubber mould, and silicon is exceptionally good at reproducing very fine detail, fine enough to even transfer small scratches ! But with what I'm doing, these are more than fine enough >>







The final finish that can be achieve is quite exceptional actually >>







Just look at those lovely sweeping curves, and absolutely no indication that I glued a couple of extra foam wedges bridging that gap. Pity I had to stop with the fine sanding though, and those light patches don't look good ......... but hey, it's not a beauty contest is it ! >>







Next stage is to apply a few coats of pure Brazilian Carnauba wax >>







All in all, I'm quite happy with the result, great stuff that 'Pattern-Coat Primer', very long process though ! But to achieve the best finish, you have to put the time in >>









And a final shot of one of the 'better' sides. The lighter patches on the surface on some of the pictures is simply the filler that was applied on the previous under coat. Running your fingers lightly across the surface as I say, feels pretty much like glass >>

















Now I'm ready for the next stage .......... it'll be very different from what I've covered before, the use of silicon rubbers is very new to me, and I for one can not wait to try it out. I've still got a bit of research to do in that department, but I think I know what I'm doing And I've also got a few things to prepare, like building some mould boxes.




I'll follow up in the next update ...........














TURK

[TURK]

Hi all,




As I'm almost at the next stage and itching to play around with some silicon rubber, I quickly began work on my mould boxes >>







The general idea is to pour a silicon rubber mix over the plugs into the mould boxes, once the silicon rubber has cured it's just a case of casting some Vac-Cast epoxy resin into the silicon moulds, to create a couple of perfect 'tooling plugs' for vacuum forming headlight parts .......... that's the theory anyway ! >>







You'll see in the background there, a couple of buckets of 'OOMOO 30' ........ if you don't know what that is, just type in 'OOMOO 30' into youtube and you'll see what people are making with it. I discovered it by watching prop makers videos as they use it in the film industry for making props.



About 'OOMOO 30', as some people may assume that because it's a silicon rubber that' it's really soft and pliable. It's basically a room drying silicon rubber ( RTV ) for mould making. It's call '30' as that' it's 'Shore' hardness. All materials have a resistance to indentation, and this is measured as 'Shore' on the 'Shore Durometer' scale, as an example a pencil erazor has a Shore value of '40' and a typical car tyre has a value of '70'.

Here's a link to a 'Durometer Shore' chart >http://www.smooth-on.com/Documents-D...370/index.html


Also, you have to take into account how you're going to pour your silicon into your mould. I think the shape and size of your mould will dictate which version of silicon rubber you choose to use. So once you've decided how hard ( or soft ) you need your mould to be, you then have to look at the 'Viscosity' of the product. It's no good trying to pour peanut butter down a funnel, but you could pour treacle that is slightly more viscous. And that is measured in 'Centipoise'. The lower the number, '0' being water for example ........ and 'OOMOO 30' is rated at '4250' ( mixed ), and ketchup is about 50,000 cps ( centipoise ). So quite runny but solid enough to stick to walls !


Incase anyone is interested here's a basic 'Viscosity' scale ....... >


>>





It's a lot of research to get to this stage, taking into account the type of part you're trying to make and the types of materials that you'll be using, as it's no good buying a certain type of silicon or resin if they will have an adverse reaction to one another.



Next time we'll move onto the fun stuff !



TURK

[gavcampbell45]

Keep up the good work can't wait to see the finished articles fitted and working recon there will be plenty of us owners adding them to a wish list

Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk

[TURK]

Hi guys,




Welcome to another project update for what is becoming a never ending story ......... I'm sure that one day some good will prevail from all this messing about


Before we begin, I'll just say that not everything went according to plan when it came to using the OOMOO 30 silicone rubber I discussed earlier So, yet again, some very valuable lessons learned. As a 'realist', I don't try to hide, or even pretend to know it all, and unlike many projects and diy tutorials on the Internet, I share my mistakes and not a perfectly executed plan claiming everything went well. Occasionally I get it right first time, but most times while learning new processes and using unfamiliar materials, things do go wrong.


Here's what happened .........








As I've chosen to use 'OOMOO30' silicon rubber as my material of choice for creating my mould, and after much research, I knew that accurate weighing scales were not really necessary. As this particular silicon rubber is a 1:1 mix ratio, so all I needed to know was the total volume required for mixing. So after fixing my plug centered into my mould box, I just poured dried rice to the brim of the mould >>







It soon become apparent that I would need about 4Kg of silicon rubber to fill that mould box. Problem number one .......... I didn't have a big enough container for mix ! With it being Christmas, the entire world has shut down, so I had to wait for business's to open before I could purchase some mixing containers large enough. Eventually I found a Popcorn container that would be suitable ......... and on the plus side, I could feast on the contents ! >>







Stage 2 - Pour the contents of the mould box ( rice ) into two smaller equal sized containers. They will serve as 'Part A' and 'Part B' of the silicon rubber.
OK, so that's 'Part A' of the silicon marked off >>







Combine 'Part B', and that's how much silicon rubber will be required to fill to mould ......... easy peasy ! >>







And as a matter of interest, I may as well weigh it ....... Just under 4Kgs shown on the scales. But this is rice, silicon is slightly more dense than rice !


Here come the sums :- If you wanted to do this by weight for instance, you would take the internal dimensions of your mould box to come to the Cubic centimetres

12cm X 32cm X 20cm = 7680 cm³ ( internal dimensions of set up box )

Then the dimensions of the model or Plug in this case

10cm X 29cm X 16cm = 4640 cm³


Deduct the size of the plug from the mould box = 3040 cm³

Then multiply that number by the specific Gravity of the material you're using, in this case the density of the mixed silicon will be 1.34 ( g/cc ) = 4073.6

So that means I'll be needing 4,073.6 grams of silicon ( or 4.07 Kgs ) in total.

2,036.8 grams of 'Part A'

plus

2,036.8 grams of 'Part B' >>







Now that I know how much silicon rubber I'll be needing, there's still some preparation to do on the plugs and mould boxes to do yet. First you have to seal the underside of the plug, soft 'filleting wax' is used here as it's none reactive with the silicon. When I began doing this, I thought .......
my God, I'm going to be here all day ...... and I was ! As wax sticks to everything, it's very difficult to get it to stay in place. For the sake of my sanity, I decided to do it in stages, took almost two days in the end >>







Turned out OK in the end though, at least the silicon rubber won't seep under the plug >>







I then took the opportunity to apply another coat of Pure Brazilian Carnauba wax all over the plug >>







Now I have to seal the mould box, as I'm using a liquid rubber it's obvious that it will seek and find any areas and gaps to seep out, so I hit upon the idea of using the filleting wax for that as well. As I didn't want to glue the mould box together ....... I may need to unscrew at some point, this seemed logical. It so happens this worked a treat T: >>







When you screw the sides and bottom of the mould box back together, the wax gets pushed out, and the seal is made >>





While all that was going on, I have to mention problem number two ......... This is by far the biggest problem. I live in a huge granite house, the winters are extreme here to say the least and of late the temperatures have been in the minuses ......... only last week saw temperature plummet to -11°C
So, you can imagine just how difficult it is to heat a place like this. I heated my workshop for four whole days prior to this mission, yet I couldn't get any where near 20°C. I don't know if any of you have noticed the warning of the buckets of silicon, but it clearly states 'Store and use at room temperature 23°C'


There was only one thing for it ........ I had to go out and buy another heater ! But it was Christmas, and everything was shut !




Problem number three ! ........ they always say that problems come in three's ! 'Part A' of the silicon wasn't at all what I expected instead of it being the consistency of treacle, it was more like 'Bubble Gum' !!! As with any product like this ( like paint for instance ), it's always recommended to pre-mix it as it's been laid dormant for a while. My original mixing stick, which is quite substantial lasted merely seconds ! I had to go to my wood stock and find a heftier wooden batten. I happen to have mixed concrete by hand in the past, that was nothing compared to mixing this stuff. Something surely is wrong here ! >>







This is what it's supposed to be like - fast forward to 01:00 >>

This is what I got ............ in fact, it was thicker than lava as I couldn't pour it ! >>

Not to be deterred, I forged ahead. After all, this is silicon rubber, I'm pretty sure that the material is shot but I also knew that it wouldn't damage my plug, and it would be interesting to see the outcome >>







Once the two 'A' and 'B' components were poured into my mixing container, it was a case of trying to mix it ! I haven't worked this hard in years >>







Then I had to try and 'pour' it did you see the lava above ? ........ well, it was worse than that
The general idea is to pour the silicon mix in a thin stream into a low corner of your mould box, doing it this way removes air pockets, but with this stuff I had to virtually trowel it in ! In fact, I had to use a scraper to try and level it out as best I could. As with any liquid it will find it's level ....... but this stuff was going nowhere >>









Next day ....... Demould day >>







I knew from the very moment I tried to push my stirring stick into 'Part A' ( the pink stuff ), that this exercise was doomed !
.................... so what have we ended up with ? :* >>







Well, at a first glance, things didn't look too bad. The demoulding process is a piece of cake as silicon doesn't stick to anything, apart from itself >>







But on close inspection, it wasn't pretty >>







Got very good definition, but that' to be expected, unfortunately I also got a lot of air entrapment causing major air pockets >>







I got so close, but unfortunately these moulds won't be good enough for the next stage. There's no way I'm going to pour what is very expensive heat resistant resin in that mould >>













As I always tend to find a positive even from the biggest of screw-ups, I come away with a valuable experience, a lesson learned and that is ............ mould making is season dependant ! Unless your surroundings are properly temperature controlled, you have no chance what so ever in success.


I'm now researching a different product that is less susceptible to ambient temperatures, a product that doesn't rely on 'condensation cure', is there such a
thing ? well it happens there is, a new product on the market that is a Polyurethane rubber and not a silicon rubber, and doesn't need to be degassed.
I'll be talking to the supplier today.




So, stay tuned for some more very boring updates in the future









TURK

[caravellvis]

WOW!!! Just caught up on progress since New Year [MENTION=1758]TURK[/MENTION]! Your attention to detail is a pleasure to behold.
It is a fascinating process to watch a new product develop in "real time" and if you didn't show us your experiments (not all sucessful) it would be too syrupy to believe.
Again I commend your enterprise and research and development investment!
A real pleasure to read and drool over.

[JustinR]

Yet another great post

Sent from my SM-G930F using Just T4s

[TURK]

Many thanks for the kind comments guys, very much appreciated

I am also very happy that some people are finding the project fascinating, product design and development, how the things come to be is really what I find interesting, always have ......... even as a child I used to take things apart at home, much to the dismay of my parents ! took my mothers vintage wall clock apart once, she went nuts over it ! I did promise to reassemble it though ........ which I did !

But anyway, back to the project .................. all this is leading to something that will be quite surprising actually. You could spend literally weeks or even months trying to find this process on the Internet, but I don't think it's been done quite this way before. Basically I'm trying to replicate an industry process that manufacturers use for tooling plugs. Only real manufacturers would have the ability to invest in what I would consider to be proper tooling plugs, tooling plugs specifically designed for mass producing plastic parts. What they use are cast aluminium tooling plugs to shape their plastic parts, as I can't do that because of the cost implications, I'm using a specially formulated Epoxy resin that combines aluminium powders in it, which makes the tooling plug both very strong and heat resistant.

Here's the next phase of the operation, which results in the 'outer wall' of the tooling plug. You have to basically create a mould that fits inside another mould, which is the inner wall of the tooling plug. Apologies if I've lost you all there, but it will soon become apparent where I'm going with this.


Firstly, I'd realised that had kind of cornered myself, my decision of using the product 'OOMOO 30' was based on the fact that that particular silicone didn't need to be degassed, and it's ease of use as it was a 1:1 mix ratio, so no expensive accurate electronic weighing scales required. So the decision to invest a little more money on the project was taken, If I bought myself a decent degassing system including a vacuum pump, I could then use any silicone available and I could also degas all types of resins.

So I bought this ........... An entire vacuum degassing system. 26L Vacuum Chamber, 2 Stage vacuum pump, a system that is capable of pulling a total vacuum of -29.92 Hg of Mercury. And 10Kg of the very latest in RTV silicone compounds, which is a 100:5 mix ratio. And some other bits and bobs >>




I could also feasibly use the system on it's side ......... at least, that was the original idea ! >>




The idea of 'degassing' silicones and resins is the system evacuates the air in the vacuum chamber, a full vacuum will eliminate all the trapped air bubbles in the mixture, leaving a flawless silicone mould.

My other much needed purchase hasn't arrived yet, a set of Steinberg digital postal scales accurate to 0.5 of a gram !




As I was up to my eyeballs in weighing mixing and degassing my silicone, and the pouring stage, I really didn't have time to be mucking about with my camera, so I don't have any pictures of that particular stage, sorry about that folks, but the following video clip will explain it far better than I could > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKdd...yCompositesLtd


Notice he degassed his silicone rubber twice, second degassing after he'd poured the silicone into his mould. As I couldn't do that because my mould set up box is too large for my system, as I'd made my mould boxes before buying my vacuum degassing system, I had to find another way. A simple method that will reduce the amount of air that is re-introduced into the silicone simply by pouring, is know as the 'high pour technique', whereby you simply pour the silicone from a height in a thin stream.




So, I rigged this thing up ....... for best results the thin stream must be at least a metre up from your mould, and you aim to pour into the lowest part of your mould box. This has the effect of pushing the air that' already in the mould box away from the silicone and not entrapping it under your silicone.


It took just over 4Kg of silicone rubber to fill this mould box >>







It'll take this particular silicone 24 hours to cure, so the following day I was ready to demould. Notice at this stage that the silicone looks 'wet' ....... that's not wet folks, that's the actual cured silicone ! the finish on it when it dries is mirror like >>







When it came to demould this particular mould, the base board came away as it's rather difficult to demould. It's almost as if the silicone has stuck to the plug, but it's not a case of the two parts being 'glued together', it's more to do with friction and suction. I was expecting the plug to just pop-out, but that's the main reason for using a flexible material for mould making, you just 'peel' the silicone mould off your plug >>







You can see here that the wax I applied to the footing of the plug acted as a seal, just this little portion had a slight leak. You don't want to spend hours trimming off 'flashing' >>







And the result is fantastic ! not a blemish, not a bubble in sight, the surface finish is as smooth as it can be. I'm well happy with that >>







As that worked out so well, the following day I attacked the next mould. This one was different however ........ when I glued the plugs down onto the base boards I needed something that wasn't going to give way, like the double sided sticky tape I used last time. So I used CT-1 construction adhesive. This way, I knew that my plug wouldn't 'float' up in the poured silicone. But the important thing is, I got another perfect silicone mould >>







Surprisingly, the other one just gave way, but this one was going nowhere ! So I had to use a pallet knife and some wedges to remove my plug, I did chip my plug in a couple of places but repairing it is far better than having to make another one, should I need to use them again in the future to make some more moulds >>







Once the mould set up boxes were cleaned up and the silicone mould flipped upside down, the mould boxes can now be used for casting resin tooling plugs ......... I'm making this look easy aren't I ! >>







Now I've got two perfectly formed and blemish free silicone moulds for the next stage ......... resin casting >>








This entire procedure could of so easily have gone wrong though, right from the get go ! ........

I happen to have complained about my electronic scales before, so for a couple of reasons I bought a set of decent and accurate scales ( as mentioned above ), but after placing my order for them and paying in advance....... as you have to do while Internet shopping ! I got an email four days later saying they didn't have them in stock ! So I won't be receiving them till the end of February !

So in order to continue I had to use my 'garbage scales' I had some serious work to do ........ What I'm getting to is, the ridiculous concept of having an 'auto shut-off' on a set of weighing scales is beyond me !?

As I needed to accurately weigh out two different compounds, where a mere 2 or 3 grams out could ruin the curing of the compounds, accuracy is vitally important. So there I was, precisely pouring my silicone rubber needing 4525 grams of silicone ............ when the scales turned themselves OFF !!!

Why o why do we need electronic devices that turn themselves OFF while they're in use !? the guy that devised that, should of been shot at birth !

So I then had to re-weigh everything, only this time I was getting different readings ! three times I weighed my bucket of silicone, and got three different readings. I can't emphasise the fact that if you're going to do something like this, buy some decent quality weighing scales ....... like postal scales, before even embarking on such a project. Luckily for me, all my following calculations were right. Such a small detail, but could of been a costly mistake ! get those ratios incorrect, and the silicone won't cure ......... ever ! it'll just stay a wet gooing sticky mess.






Next up ........ casting Vac-Cast Epoxy resin to make the final vacuum forming plugs. Just got a few things to work out yet, and make a couple of 'fill-in' blocks.



Till then ........ Salut







TURK

[arfur fox-acre]

I think its incredible what you are doing, i really do. Such dedication to your cause. I hope it goes well, you get your investment back with a suitable return for your efforts and we get some proper headlights at last.
arfur

[TURK]

What a nice thing to say Arfur

I doubt that I'll ever come out evens ........ but that doesn't matter to me. At least we'll all have the potential of having decent headlights on our vans, as you say ....... much needed, and well overdue !



I also see from your sig, that you feel the same way as I do about ever owning a T5 !!!








TURK