turbocad's custom dual/quad headlight mod

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OK, last night was only till 2am, but the top of the mold is now done too. a few shots... here you can see more of the thought behind using the sushi container :tonguey:




the silicone that this mold is made from is so precise in the image it captures that it can even pick up a fingerprint on glass & reproduce it. the first molds were also less than perfect on the reflector face because I used mold release on them, but even just the mold release created a film that made the face not smooth as glass. this one I did different, I sprayed everything down with mold release, then I replaced the reflectors again after & polished the faces to perfect with no mold release on the faces at all, so the castings should be that much more perfect too, I needed to polish the faces of the previous reflectors but these should be perfect right out of the mold with no polishing I think


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and this mornings results


now THIS is a mold, looks so much more pro than my first attempts:

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& here is the reason why I could not even think of using this type of silicone before I had the vacuum chamber, look at how many air bubbles there are just pouring out of the container... this is before even mixing when the real bubbles come into play & really cloud up the mix... these air bubbles can never come out without the vacuum chamber & will ruin any mold. the first purple stuff I used did not have so much of a air bubble problem, but also did not have anywhere near the performance of this new silicone...
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I need to find a source for larger quantities of a silicone like this. the smooth-on branded stuff is real nice but small quantities & very expensive... this mold alone took 48oz of silicone which is like $80 for just this much... I'd like to eventually play with much larger stuff than just reflectors & to even think about doing something like say attempt to cast a complete modified headlight bezel in this same material would start to get extremely expensive... to do 2 complete headlight bezels would be well over $500 in just silicone:err:. I think lance sent me a few links a while ago to other sources in larger quantities, gotta dig them up for future reference...
 
I guess good stuff never come cheap. Turbo, do you have any specification on the silicon and that "smooth-on" is the brand?

I can check with our company purchaser to see if he has some contact on these items. He used to be a purchaser for some fuel cell companies.
 
heres a link to technical data: http://www.smooth-on.com/tb/files/DRAGON_SKIN_SERIES_TB.pdf

& heres the manufactures website page: http://www.smooth-on.com/Silicone-Rubber-an/c2_1115_1129/index.html

I'm not 100% sure exactly which one I'm using as there website shows a few different viscosities, but I know they have a dragon skin & a dragon skin Q which is much faster & only 8 minute pot life, the one I'm using is a 20 minute pot life...

edit: judging by the tech data sheet, I'm using the dragon skin 10 medium
 
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We also use thick stick pins at opposing angles stuck through the silicon to keep the halves "in sync" before pouring, you will always have a little flashing no matter what you do but its easy to blade off.....the molds have come a lonnngggg ways John, keep up the good work! IMO-I think a very small whorl print on a corner of at least one of the lenses in each set would be in keeping with the "hand made by TC6 Motorsports"..... :)
 
lance, thanks for your help so far with this, don't think I would have gotten this far without your guidance. I considered using locating pins, but the way I set the mold up with the reflectors really raised with a sharp step kinda acts like it's own locating device, that combined with the casing of the sushi container forcing everything in line made me think I didn't really need them, if I had some nice wood dowels I woulda used them though, but I think it's ok as-is. shoulda thought to etch a tiny TC6 in the corner :smile:

I've found the best prices on this silicone at like $33 for 2lb's(1 pint), which is 24 oz, I used 2 setups like this to make this one mold but I bought them at almost $40 each from pearl art supplies.

I also found gallon kits for $180 which I guess isn't bad, that's 16lb's or 192 oz. the problem with this stuff too is shelf life, you don't want to buy more than you can use up in maybe 4-5 months max because it will go bad just sitting on the shelf... also gotta be careful who you buy from, someone with less turn around may have stuff on the shelf for months before it sells & then your actual life in your hands is even less... I've even bought a casting resin once from an arts supply store that was already bad when I bought it, just gels up after a while & is unusable...
 
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I have talked to my purchaser. He has some contact for injection type silicon US supplier for molding use. I will get that information tomorrow and send you a PM. Hope that you will be able to get that type of silicon for better deal. :.smile:
 
thanks bro but don't knock yourself out over it, I probably won't be buying in quantity for a while yet... just want to finish these & then move on to my motor swap... still haven't done much there at all, probably won't be looking for any quantity of silicone till at least springtime...
 
ok, last night I attempted another casting with the new mold... the guy I got the resin from gave me some pointers & one of them was if I warmed the resin up a bit the viscosity would go down & it would be easier to fill my mold. well I tried this & it still is not good enough. actually by warming it up a bit I did get it to be not as thick & molasses like, BUT the problem there is that the warmer the material is the faster it cures too, the resin actually started to cure in the vacuum chamber. after a few minutes it was even evident in the way the bubbles burst, almost like they were breaking out of a shell rather than just boiling normal, also took longer to degas because it was curing,the bubbles slowed down but kept coming & coming & coming, looked more like it was simmering rather than boiling, but I tried a pour anyway after it was degassed as much as I could just to see & I was able to get some of the mold filled at least enough to see the results...

the difference between the new mold & the old is huge. the new mold is really perfect. this is what I wanted the mold to be like from the beginning. if you thought the first reflectors were cool then these will just blow you away. I have clear factory reflectors from red rear tailights & I use that as my reference, the factory clear reflectors are of course perfect. the perfect prizims are cool because the way they refract light is similar to a crystal, & it disects the light waves into all the different wavelengths of colors & actually shows a rainbow effect at certain angles because of this... this is the same as the way a swivorsky crystal works, & the rainbow effect is an indicator that you have perfect facets. I had nothing even close to this before, but now... now it's just right, same rainbow effect & same clarity & close to the same perfection as the factory reflectors




this mornings results, this first shot is showing from left to right: last nights casting, a factory clear reflector, 1st version (yellowing) & then the last one on the right which is the new resin but before the vacuum chamber.

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here is a comparison of the first reflector to the latest, huge difference in clarity & perfection of the facets... the first ones look like crap in comparison:

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it's amazing the amount of ultra precise detail this silicone can capture with the right methods used:

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check out the rainbow effect, had to capture with a picture but looks sick in person, very close to as perfect as the factory reflectors which also just look like glass:

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the good news is that at least the mold is filling evenly both left & right... I have to now find a way to force the resin into the mold. I have a few ideas ranging from relatively simple all the way up to a complicated air pressurized injection setup which I'd really rather not get into just yet. lance(logan) has advised me in the past of the possibility of using a syringe, but I need something with at least the capacity of ~6 oz or so, so he advised looking into horse syringes, stuff that a veterinarian would use. also I'm thinking that whatever I use will probably need to be disposable & so far the syringes I've been able to find are pretty costly & will add even more to my costs on these per set. I'm trying to find a more cost effective way because spending over $20 for each & every syringe can get pricey. I'm considering the possibility of using some sort of a squeeze bottle, kinda like a ketchup dispenser type deal, I'm thinking this should work & I'm sure I can source something like this for much cheaper than syringes

one problem I can see is that a syringe would be perfect because it will inject but it will not allow any kind of backflow that would add air to the mix, where using a squeeze bottle gotta be really careful because if I let up a little on the squeezing once underway this could cause problems & wind up introducing air to the mix, so I'm thinking I may need to use some sort of progressive clamping action to squeeze the bottle evenly & progressively... I'll be looking around this weekend to see what I can find for this...

---------- Post added at 04:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:46 PM ----------

ketchup bottle type dispenser, turkey baster,maybe even some sort of enema or douche devices?(yeah, I'm even thinking outside the box on this one... or inside the box even when it comes to a douche device:rofl:)... any other ideas out there for this?:rofl:
 
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