Making Body Shells

[LEGEND]

Here is a pic of my MDF mould made at school.

[low13]

nice i wish my product design teacher would let me do stuff like that instead im left doing cswk(even when i go after school) we have the laser cutter prodesktop(3 d design)and vacum former i reckon i could make a car if i had the time.ah welll spose towards the end of the year.i reckon the mdf will work well as its not so porous like wood itself.

[Gaz_Stanton]

Originally Posted by ashleyb4

Use layers of balserwood trimmed to close shape then sand.

A

The best wood for a mould comes from a type of banana tree called Jelutong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelutong_%28tree%29. This is pretty easy to work with but has a very dense grain meaning you can get a very good, smooth finish. Can't remember where i got it from but don't remember having a problem getting hold of it.

When i did a shell for a GCSE project 12 years ago I found that the school vacformer wasn't really up to the task. It was fine with very thin plastic sheet but as soon as I used lexan thick enough to be used for a shell it struggled.
I ended up making the mould and then sending it off to Racecraft for them to mould using the same lexan they used for their shells: -

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...ProjectPic.jpg

[Tom3012]

thats one very weird, yet very cool bodyshell