21 Mar 08

High production today. Hunt and I trimmed the I-beam this morning, which is a really impressive piece. Ben showed up and worked on the supports for the body skin molds, and Luke came shortly thereafter and started working on the hat section mold. Caroline cut some circular pieces of veneer for a steering wheel plug.
After lunch, we finished the oak side rams of the hat section mold, and Luke started cutting steel for several various supports for the mold. Soon, Ben stopped working on the mold supports and began welding steel as Luke fed him with parts. Aaron was still feeling sick today, but he came in and worked on some renderings that we needed to have finished by today. Caroline and I glued up a the steering wheel plug for a demo, and Hunt worked on the fixture that will allow us to slot the wheel on the radial arm saw. I took the dashboard mold out, assessed it with Hunt, and decided to tear the skin off and reskin the mold. The surface quality of it was weak, as was the resulting part that we made from it several months ago. The original mold was skinned in 2 layers of bendable plywood that were 1/8" thick. To maintain this offset, I ripped some 2X4s into 1/4" strips, and Luke and I glued and stapled them to the mold. Hunt continued his work on the fixture, and I applied body filler to the mold until about 7:15. Then, I went inside to eat and watched a little NCAA tournament basketball. At halftime of the UNC game, I came out and worked on the body filler surface of the mold until about 9:30 and called it a night.