18 Jul 08

I pulled the dash tie-in piece from the mold this morning, but it was a little tacky still, so I put it back on the mold and left it in the sun to cure. Ben came and started work on infusing the brake ducts. I painted a coat of polyester resin on the 4" thick balsa chunk which will lend depth to the taillight cutouts. Caroline replaced spools of veneer on the 1/8" loom while Zach and Zac rolled the spools outside. Hunt sanded, coated, and recoated the front wing, which was really looking gorgeous by the end of the day. I took the windshield out and used body filler to smooth in the areas around where I built up slightly to accommodate the glass. We decided to cut the balsa chunk into 3 pieces for easier fitting, and I marked where these cuts needed to be made right before lunch. Ben soldiered on with his infusion during lunch, and didn't quit until he had the glued pulled at around 3pm. After lunch, Luke and I went to work on fitting the balsa chunks to the back of the body. Luke had the unenviable task of sitting inside the body shell and holding the chunks up inside the taillights holes while I looked at them and ground them to fit. We spent an hour or 2 on this, and then we glued them in with epoxy once they were fit properly. I roughly fit the dash tie-in piece, which had eventually cured, and Luke headed out. Ben and I stained and laid the veneer for the final layer of the roof scoop, but left the infusion for tomorrow. He headed out around 8:00pm, and I went in to eat. After dinner, Hunt came up, and he buffed the front wing while I pulled the peel ply off the brake ducts. We spent the next hour or so wrestling with the air chisel, digging the mold out of the part. We didn't want a draft angle in these parts, so we had to invest the molds when we made them. Hunt left at around 10:15pm, and I did some research on light fixtures for the car, calling it quits at about 11:00pm.