06 Feb 08

I got a lot done on the body today. I used the line sander on the flank which is really looking good. I had to leave early at about 5 to go to Atlanta, but Hunt, Aaron, Ben and Zac worked on. Ben and Zac were able to put the trusses up on the new shop, and Aaron has started remodeling the body of the car for a new set of renderings. When I got to my hotel room in Atlanta, I discovered that the UNC/Duke game was blacked out on cable due to some ridiculous conflict, so I had to go watch it in a bar that had satellite. Not cool.

05 Feb 08

More work on the side of the body mold, as usual. We will be fiberglassing the mold by the weekend if all continues to go well. I have to go to Atlanta again tomorrow, otherwise it would be finished sooner. Aaron, Ben, and Zac made all the trusses for the new building. Maybe tomorrow they will have them going up. Luke came out this afternoon and got the ball rolling on the hat section for the rear suspension. He cleaned off the press, collected some pieces that we already made for the hat section mold, and strategized with Hunt. Tom Boyd from Staubli came out today to give me some literature on their air jac system. We are looking at using this to lift the car off the ground to unload the leaf springs. After dinner, I came back out and worked on the driver's side window. Now I am going in to pack and go to sleep.

04 Feb 08

The body mold is really getting close. I worked on it all day again today and got the crease in the side of the body pretty well straightened out on the driver's side. The crease is definitely the most difficult part of the surface to get right, so tomorrow, I should have the whole side skimmed and ready for block sanding. Ben came in at the end of the day and worked on the tail of the car, which is about 70% complete. Aaron, Ben and Zac hung the siding on the exterior of the new building out back, and Aaron and Zac nearly finished the jig which will be used to copy the trusses. Hunt worked on the vacuum pump for a large part of the day.

03 Feb 08

The woven layer underneath the butterfly panel was a great success. The epoxy flowed really well, and, had we had a peel ply and tissue layer, would have required very little clean-up work. Hunt tested the resin on a laminate of several woven bamboo sheets and 1 bi-ply sheet, and it flowed under the layers of the weave acceptably well. We may use this as a core material on future parts. For the better part of the day, I worked on the driver's side window line and wheel well. I had to add about a gallon of body filler to the wheel well to build it out the right level. I hope to be able to skim the entire driver's side tomorrow. After work, Caroline, Aaron and I took a well deserved break and went to Ryan's for the Super Bowl.

02 Feb 08

I worked on the body mold for most of the morning. I think I should be ready to skim the flank with body filler by around lunchtime tomorrow. That is my goal, anyway. The big story of today was of the butterfly panel. We wove and glued down a skin on the underside of the piece that went extremely well from what we can tell. We will know more in the morning when we pull it out of the vacuum bag. Our buddy Doug Kirven stopped by and got suckered into helping us. We got a pretty decent system going after a while. We first spread epoxy onto the surface of the butterfly panel. We then spread epoxy on both sides of the strips, weaving as we went, one at a time right on the butterfly panel. We had planned to spray the epoxy through an HVLP gun and pressure pot system, but we started rolling it on manually and just stuck with it. We will probably spray the next one just to try it. After spreading all the epoxy evenly around on the woven strips, we stapled the strips together around the outside to help hold them in place. It was pretty normal from there; we covered the layer with 4mil polyethylene film, put our screen on, slid it in the the bag and vacuumed away. After finishing, Caroline, Hunt and I went out to eat at Neyda's (our friend from Home Depot) restaurant. When we came back, I worked on the body mold for another hour and a half, and now I am calling it a night.

01 Feb 08

More body mold work today. I got the rear section of the driver's flank symmetrical with respect to the passenger's side and skimmed in body filler. The only major surface left is the driver's door area. I hope to get symmetry in that surface tomorrow so that I can skim it in body filler and begin blocking it. Hunt and Aaron collaborated to design the trusses for the new building in a cad-type program, and Ben and Zac cut all the pieces. Ben and Zac left early because the weather was 35F and raining most of the day, but Aaron worked on the website and stayed. I am beat, so I am going to bed early tonight with hopes of hitting the door area of the flank hard tomorrow. We may also try to apply a layer of woven veneer for the first time to the underside of the passenger's butterfly panel. It will be exiting to see if that works.

31 Jan 07

I got a lot of rough-in work done today on the driver's side flank and the underlying surface to the driver's side butterfly panel. I feel like we are in the home stretch on the body mold finally. Aaron and Zac worked outside all day on the walls to the new building, and, with help from Luke, they were able to raise them and begin with the siding. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so Aaron and Zac will likely work on the trusses for the new building under our new lean-to. I might have Ben help me inside on the body mold. I am getting really antsy to knock this thing out so we can fiberglass it and start making wood parts off of it. The clock be always ticking.

30 Jan 08

More work on the body mold today. I tore off the driver's side butterfly panel and began to carve the underlying surface. It seemed like everywhere was 1.5" high, so I put a lot of wood chips on the floor. Hunt and I worked on making a measuring system that lets me measure on the horizontal axis for symmetrizing the flanks of the mold. Between it and our reliable, vertical system, I think everything should work pretty well. Aaron did some website work today, then joined Ben and Zac on the new building out back. They finished putting down the 2x4 subfloor, installed insulation, put down a layer of OSB followed by roofing felt, and managed to almost finish the next OSB layer. Soon, they will start making trusses. I really need to get a lot of rough-in work done on the driver's side flank tomorrow.

Detroit's hits and misses

I had the honor of writing a segment on the Detroit Auto Show this year, detailing what I feel are the 5 best and 5 worst concepts of the show. The article was published for Orange. It is Europe’s largest broadband provider with over 8.1 million broadband customers across Europe, and is Britain’s No1 VOIP provider with more than 150,000 users. Here is the article.

29 Jan 08

Another day, another spray. I worked on the body all day again today in preparation for an after-dinner body filler spray. That's all the rage these days, so I hear. After some conferences with Hunt and Brownie, I decided to change the front wheel well bevel that I worked so long on a few days ago. I was worried that the concavity of the surface would push the wheel into the body a little too much, which is not what we want. I had originally planned for the concavity due to the satin finish we were planning for the exterior. In using a less reflective surface than is normal for cars, I was looking for ways to make the surfaces have contrast and pop. I think it actually looks better the way it is now, even without the wheels on it, so I will chalk that one up to knowledge gained through experimentation. I am going to let the body filler dry while I go in and watch a movie/fall asleep. Aaron and Zac worked today on the floor for the new shop. They welded in all the joists and have begun the subfloor. It's going to be a nice one.

28 Jan 08

Lots of body work today, as usual. I got the side ready for a body filler spray and made a good deal of progress on the back. Aaron, Ben and Zac welded together the subframe for the floor of the new shop. They worked on it all day, but it looked good by the end. Ben wasn't working inside with me today, but Luke did show up late this afternoon. He helped me work on the back some and stayed for dinner. After dinner, Caroline, Luke and I added another layer to the butterfly panel. Everything went smoothly with that. My old man called in the middle of vacuuming the veneer down to brag to me about his technical savvy as he watched us work on the live webcam.
After vacuuming the layer on, Luke left and I went about writing an article on the Detroit Auto Show for orange.co.uk. At a little after 1am, I was writing up the final of 10 cars when I went to look up a fact. Somehow, I lost my work from all the way back to #3 at this point. I decided to go to bed and lay for about 75 seconds before deciding to go rewrite it, which took until about 250am. Tomorrow is going to be a rough morning, I have a feeling.

27 Jan 08

I worked on the passenger side rear wheel well area of the body mold for most of the day today. It is very close to finished. I will be really disappointed if we don't spray at least the passenger flank with body filler tomorrow. If we are lucky, Ben and I will finish the rear end tomorrow, too. Hunt, Caroline, and I experimented with weaving 2-4" strips of veneer for use as the inner skin of the butterfly panel. This is really going to be a sweet feature, as it conforms to the compound curvature of the part and gives balanced strength in 2 directions. The tricky part will be spreading the adhesive, but we have several ideas about how to do it, any of which would probably work. We just won't know the best way until we try one, and it will be interesting to play with. Looks like we are going to need to find some clear epoxy.

26 Jan 08

Hunt and I spent the morning making a couple of dispensers for parts A and B of the epoxy we use from Daubert Chemical. We found a couple 5 gallon, stainless containers at J&D Recyclers that we felt would be suitable, and we went to the Home Depot to get some fittings. After a little welding and a pressure test, our containers were finished. Once we finished modifying the containers, we filled them with epoxy and tried them out by gluing up another layer onto the butterfly panel with help from Caroline and our buddy, Doug Kirven. Once this was finished, we called it a day.

25 Jan 08

I spent another entire day working on the side of the car. We have decided to try to mold the wheel arch bevels into the body skins rather than making them from a separate piece, so I had to perfect that detail in the mold. I probably worked on the front arch for 4-5 hours today, and, I can tell you, it is right. I moved on down the side and tested the line of the side air intake. It was a little concave, so I had to rework that area slightly. Hunt and Zac worked on the wiring of the new shop all day today. We now have power under the new lean-to and all the way back to the future wall of the new shop. Ben and Aaron had the day off, although Ben came out at lunch and worked on a personal project of his own. After dinner, I came back out and flattened the area for the rear wheel arch bevel. I learned from the first bevel that it is much easier to start off with a flat surface. Next, I made a pattern for the inner shape of the bevel and stepped it off 3/4" all the way around. This allowed me to use a 3/4" pattern bit on my router and cut myself out a groove to grind to. I will find out if that was a good idea or not tomorrow, because I am going to bed.

24 Jan 08

Ben and I got a more and more done on our respective surfaces today. Tomorrow I will spray the passenger flank of the mold with body filler to see what I am dealing with. Soon it will be done. Aaron and Zac dug some trench and ran electrical conduit and wire to the new shop. Hunt welded the broken bracket on the big vacuum pump and got his small vacuum pump ready to suck. I am feeling back to normal again, so I was able to go back out after dinner and get the flank ready for its final sanding before a spray. It was a pretty good work day, just not too much to talk about.

23 Jan 08

Ben and I worked on the mold more today, just the same as yesterday. He worked on the back, and I worked the on the side. We are both getting very close to finished, fortunately. Hunt and I went to the Home Depot and purchased almost all of the materials that we will use for the new building. Hunt worked on some wiring inside and outside the blue room for most of the day, and Aaron and Zac worked on various construction tasks outside. A friend of mine, Glenwood, and his wife stopped by to check out the progress on the car. Other than that, it was just another day on the car. Still feeling sick as a dog, so I am going to bed early tonight again to try to shrug it off. Brownie caught me with a lick to the face today, so I am hoping that will help.

22 Jan 08

Lost of work done on the side and rear of the body mold today. Ben worked on the back all day again today, and I worked the side most of the day. The crease in the side is looking pretty respectable, but the surfaces still need a good bit more work. I had to crawl under the house today and fix a hot water line that froze and burst last night. Caroline didn't say anything, but I got the distinct impression that she was not too happy about going without hot water last night and this morning. Aaron put a backsplash on the infeed/outfeed tables that also attaches them to the wall. He and Zac also cut all the steel that we will use for the floor joists in the new building. Hunt worked on our vacuum pump for most of the day. A bracket was broken off of the pump, either during shipping or soon before, so he is going to weld it up. Feeling pretty sick today, so I am going to take it easy tonight.

21 Jan 08

Hunt and I started off the morning by getting a capacitor for the motor we will use for a vacuum pump we are assembling. When we got back, I got Ben working on the back end of the car some more. He worked on this all day long, and it is looking a lot better. Aaron and Zac laid out the footprint for a new building we are making in the back for glue-ups. After lunch, Hunt and I went to see our buddies at Tramway Veneers to get some hickory and birch veneer clipped for use on the butterfly panels. While we were gone, Aaron and Zac dug holes and poured concrete around the posts for the new building. After dinner, I went back outside and worked some more on the surfaces of the mold that make up the flanks of the car. Pretty rundown tonight, I hope I am not getting sick; keep the fingers crossed.

20 Jan 08

We had a long night last night as I tried to help a buddy get his truck unstuck from a nearby, not-so-dry lakebed, but we still managed to get a lot done today. Caroline, Hunt and I added another 3 layers of thickness to the butterfly panel today, which went even better than yesterday's lay-up. For the rest of the day, I worked on the body mold. I all but finished the surface that lies under the butterfly panel, and did a huge amount of work on the flank. Hunt fine sanded and polished the gel-coat of the driver's side butterfly panel mold.

19 Jan 08

I finished removing the butterfly panel on the passenger side this morning. I made a few holes in the mold of the underlying panels, so I crawled inside the mold and glued blocks in behind to fill the spaces. Soon after, Caroline came out to help Hunt and I try to start laying up a real butterfly panel. We cut several strips for each layer and glued them with epoxy from Daubert Chemicals. We used a large vacuum bag for pressure, which worked fine. There are a couple of areas where the veneer wrinkled or bridged the curvature of the mold which we will have to grind out, but since these parts aren't structural, this doesn't bother us. I was distracted for most of the process watching UNC drop a close one to Maryland, but the part was a success in spite of this fact.