Death of a thousand cuts and a new approach to split moulds
Yesterday I thought I would separate the battery box from its mould, I knew I was in for a struggle because of the convoluted shape and the inability to highly polish the mould. Worse, when laying up the CF, it would not conform to the shape and consequently there were lots of raggedy CF ends. When coated in cured epoxy resin these ends become hard and are very sharp, they also break off into splinters.
Two hours into splitting the box from the mould I had about 20 fine and irritatingly painful cuts and the same number of splinters it then dawned on me that this was never going to come off in one piece. If I did get it off in one piece the mould was obviously a failure and would have to be re-made, unfortunately I could not foresee a method of making it without the sharp contours the existing mould had, the battery is rectangular and to hold it securely one needs a shape that conforms to the battery.
Thinking laterally, I could get it off if the mould was split so I put it under my chop saw which split it very satisfactorily – see below:
find the nearest shell gas station
The two parts of CF came off the mould very easily and were then glued back together with super glue. The finish does not matter in this location so the two halves will have about 4 layers of CF bandage applied across the split and I think that will work.
I tried the glued together battery box on the frame as I was worried that I had lost the thickness of the saw from the part but this was not a problem. I did however realised that since making the original pattern I had welded some washers to the frame to secure the air scoops and provide supports for the wiring harness and this will require 2 x 8mm slots being cut in the CF.