Manny

Guys,
Didn't want to post anything until my friend's website was ready, but here's a retro F1 body I did for the F104 v1.0

http://www.vf1club.com/index.html

Lone Star

iTrader: (3)

Very nice! I hope you dont let those go cheap, thats some mold work. Good luck with the class. What year is the cutoff?

Manny

Thanks! It took me a year, lots of trial and error and lots of learning!
It's priced slightly more than most body sets considering it doesn't come with decals, drivers helmet, just the body. I believe the cars in this series all have to be from the 60's.

djs101

iTrader: (87)

Has anyone tried to form a truggy body?

Lone Star

iTrader: (3)

Not yet. Truggy is pretty small where i run. Also a machine to form them correctly is really getting up in the commercial territory. Im guessing that the frame would need to be like a 18" x 30" or more and heating lexan that large evenly needs a big and accurate (expensive) heater. Maybe Manny's pizza oven would do it, he seems to have his process down really good.

djs101

iTrader: (87)

I have been able to find his setup or process on here. Hey Manny...share please!

pistolpete1982

iTrader: (26)

I've vacuum formed a truggy body here's a pic.....

http://www.rctech.net/forum/r-c-item...rc8t-sale.html

Look at the 10th post....

I sold the truggy with the body, I should of kept the body. Not the most difficult thing to form but did take a couple of pulls to get a good body out of it. Heating the plastic to the right time and evenly is the hardest.

djs101

iTrader: (87)

Nice looking body. What did you use for a heater?

the incubus

iTrader: (17)

Amen dgd!!!

We need to form a coalition for the return to nicer looking bodies like the gorgeous Kinwald bodies and such. The 22 stock body is beautiful in my personal opinion and I'd love to see bodies that are similar for other cars, especially the B4, K1 and RB6. Cab forward bodies just look clunky and clumsy and weird.

fullwatts

iTrader: (15)

I'll go one further. I'd like to see more electric specific bodies. Why is it, especially with truggies that so few people make electric bodies? I'd like to see bodies that took electric cooling into account. I have a few concept ideas I'll share here when I get a little further along. I've been playing around with some carbon fiber molds and have had some pretty decent results. I'm nailing down my method and I should have one off the mold later tonight. I started with the Jconcept illuzion punisher body for a MBX6 Eco, mostly becasue it was small and the geometry wasn't too hard (no negatives). But I'm halfway on a Proline Bulldog truggy mold. Next up is the Toyota Tundra SCT body. Just gotta find a time to shoot the gelcoat.

I know that CF bodies is a little off topic but I've been lurking here because in order to make my own and not splash other bodies I have to first form a plug, then form a lexan shell then I can make a mold off the lexan. So the lexan forming is an intermediate step.

I appreciate everything everyone is sharing. It helps me flesh out my own plans. I'd love to see a little more discussion on heater boxes. When I was in college we had an industrial vacuum former in the lab/shop. I seem to vaguely remember that the heater was part of the lid. Imagine a box freezer. The kind you find in a garage. It was about that size and the lid hinged up. You would slide your sheet into the lid and the heater was built into the lid. No heating in an oven and transferring it. The plastic was always at the exact right temp and didn't have a chance to cool during transfer.

In addition I remember one of my professors talking about mold design. He told us to drill small holes in the mold so the vac could pull not only around the mold but through it. He said this was especially important in sharp corners and deep draws. Otherwise the plastic had a tendency to bridge those geometries. Don't know if anyone has mentioned this before but I thought it worth sharing. I'll see if I can dig up some pics of some small size industrial vac formers. It's worth learning from those designs.

djs101

iTrader: (87)

Good stuff....looking forward to the information fullwatts.

fullwatts

iTrader: (15)

Here's one of the first carbon bodies. Just popped it off the mold. It's still curing and I'll trim it out tomorrow.

I tried bagging it at first but it's too deep and it bridged like crazy so I had to make an insert and compress it.

Couple more pulls and I'll have it down. Looks pretty good for a first pull. Finish is pretty good I just have to get the cloth patterns more dialed. But there's a lot to figure out with a deep draw mold like this.

Lone Star

iTrader: (3)

Check out Airtech Stretchlon for bag film that is more like rubber. Ive used it for years and it can draw deep. Also make sure that you put rolled up breather in the impressions for extra pressure. Good luck!

fullwatts

iTrader: (15)

Thanks for the tip. I'll search out that stuff. I try and avoid bagging if possible. It's messy and expensive. I really prefer compression molds, they are just more work to make. With this body there's a really tight little space and it's hard to get it to bag right. I figured before I went and made cauls I'd at least try a compression. So far I'm happier with it this way.

Trimmed out the body and threw it on the car. I think it looks mean. 140 grams total weight and about a hundred times stronger than lexan.

the incubus

iTrader: (17)

Wow. Very nice. Some window stickers would really make it pop. And there's also colored CF so you could experiment with different colors to see how that turns out.