My Elio Alternate Project Is Underway.

[AriLea]

that makes sense, info appreciated .... I figured the process would be time consuming but had no clue as to how much so

Keep in mind, once a few parts have been pulled, the workers are all trained up, supplies covienently deployed, and things move a lot faster. I am going to guess this mold can make more than one part each workshift if it is heated when not being worked.

So two workers in a team, 4 molds to work on (overlapped sequences), 6-8 parts made, and that would be a good day for that team.

 

[JEBar]

So two workers in a team, 4 molds to work on (overlapped sequences), 6-8 parts made, and that would be a good day for that team.

OK .... as noted, all that's way over my pay grade

 

[Mark BEX]

Likely he will have a spray layer of colored surface first,

No, no gelcoat on the floors.

45 min to prep, spray and clean up the tools etc. Then let that dry, or mostly dry.

Takes about 15 minutes to give 2 coats of wax as it's a large mold.

Then some time to at least partly harden between each layer.

No, you want to get as many layers in at a time while wet so the resin melds together as one, it's a real race against time at that point.

The determining factor of how many layers at a time is heat, the thicker the layup, the more heat that will be produced, and that heat will cause cracking to the part and mold distortion. When the resin is setting, you often can't touch it due to the heat, smoke or vapour will even come off the setting part sometimes, and that heat, if too much, in turn makes the resin set faster, too fast and it just gets brittle and cracks, so you need to find the balance.

First floor will be 5mm thick, which I hope is too thick, hope they can do that in one hit. Not sure if they will use chopped strand mat or roving, thinking with the sharp corners they will need the chopped strand as it's more flexible, or at least chopped strand on the first layers to get into the corners.

Polyester resin.

Of course for non-structural panels, sometimes only two layers in total, fine cloth followed by either standard or roving or resin/chop mix. Paint afterward. (he will save that original male mold for future female mold making)

Yeah, but of course depends on shape too, compound shapes are stronger than flat panels.

For this kind of mold, between a dozen and a few hundred.

You hear different stories about molds, mostly I hear 50 to 100 parts pulled then the molds start to warp and distort from the heat and cooling of the parts, as well as general wear and tear. Probably not critical for the floors though.

 

[Joshua Caldwell]

If this helps, the people working with Aptera say it should take about 10 minutes per part, no longer hours per part.

 

[AriLea]

The determining factor of how many layers at a time is heat,

Two of the differences compared to my experiences, we did not have as tight a man-hours imparative for both Boeing and the Vehicle Research Institute. Also for Washington State, our shops were not cold enough to turn the heat on all that much, but it does get pretty cool anytime but summer. And that certainly changes the part self-heat and hardening issues.

 

[AriLea]

If this helps, the people working with Aptera say it should take about 10 minutes per part, no longer hours per part.

I totally believe that, because if you used just a gelcoat and chop-glass spray, and just moved between a series of molds, on each part you could spray the gelcoat in 5 and the chop in another 5. But that composite would never have as good a strength-to-weight ratio as several layers of cloth and resin.
And of course that takes a big space with some number of molds all ready to go, and some set of equipment needs some kind of mobility, be it the molds or the sprayers. But that estimate does not include mold prep, repositioning, part separation from the mold, hardening time, etc etc.

 

[Mark BEX]

If this helps, the people working with Aptera say it should take about 10 minutes per part, no longer hours per part.

Hence why Aptera are $40,000 (whatever).

Another large local fiberglass company offered to do it with "10 minutes per part" dies at hideous cost. Male and female dies close on the mat, resin is sucked through the dies rapidly, easy if you want to pay for the setup and sell your cars for $40,000 as to recover those costs.

It's very simple economics, like metal stamping the bodies. I can make the entire metal bodies for under a $1,000 dollars each, but the pressing dies and setup are going to cost me about a $million dollars. I know, I've priced them.


I am a mildly experience fiberglass'er, nothing production, but numbers of smaller parts over the years where I have made the pattern, mold and parts, and would suggest the floor or sides, which are roughly the same size, would see them done in about 15 minutes, with about half an hour setting in the mold, and another 10 minutes trimming. So about an hour for each piece, but this of course would be done with overlap with multiple molds operational for larger production numbers.

 

[Mark BEX]

First floor out of the mold, here in all it's glory in a stunning blood red colour.

This is literally the first production part, lets hope there's more soon.

 

[Mark BEX]

Floor in my shop, starting the process of trimming the firewall box and preparing it to be molded.

 

[ehwatt]

Floor in my shop, starting the process of trimming the firewall box and preparing it to be molded.

View attachment 26550

Which epoxy did you use? This has gone from exciting to SWEET.