16 Mar 08

I cleaned up the shop this morning. Shop dirty. Take long time. After getting that out of the way, I began to get things in order to make the new part. I needed to increase the radius size on the molds, and I also cut the veneer pieces to size and shape. Hunt worked a lot on getting the radial arm saw set and installed. He drilled and mounted a large chunk of aluminum for the bed and did not appear to be enjoying it. We had the ACC tournament championship on in the shop today, which UNC won in a tough one over Clemson. Soon after that ended, our buddy John came by to check out our progress. He stayed for a few, and right as he left, Jenna Eason and her friend Sacha came out to see us. Jenna is a student from NC State and is interested in the car from an automotive textiles standpoint. When they left, Caroline taped the molds off to protect them from glue while I took the all-thread tie-down rods off another mold for use on the new one. Hunt came back down, and the three of us glued up the part. We followed much the same procedure as on the gas tank laminate. We pulled radii down with a curtain custom-fit to the part, and used an air-bag inside a steel channel, which Ben welded to size for the mold, to hold the sides down. We used an air bag to pressurize the top and held it down with the upper platen of the giant press. We haven't calibrated the platens yet, so we didn't want to use them for pressure tonight. Tomorrow, we will check the part out and hopefully make the sister part, which will complete the I-beam shape.