second prototype

I have now put on the second of my prototypes, the changes I have made from the first one are...

1. less gel coat


2. Vac bag construction


3. EST logo


4. Kevlar changed to carbon kevlar for better drapability and single piece construction


5. less resin used as a result
   
   

First I stopped being so lazy and polished up the mould a bit more:

After this I made the vac bag I would be using with plenty of material so it can get right down into the inside of the helmet. I have stolen a 1600W vacuum cleaner and stuck a port in it to create my vacuum.

The EST logo has been created from polyethylene which is easy to create but doesn't fold well into the mould so hasn't given a perfect imprint. It has been suggected that I use sheet wax next time which can be heated to mould into the shape of the helmet, something for the third prototype.

I layered up the carbon when the gel coat was touch dry so that the weave could be manipulated without being damaged too much( It's still not perfect). All the other layers went in fine in single peice sections which was great. I'm trying a new release film which is cheaper than peelply but apparently does the same job (I hope). After this the polyester fleece is put on and the whole lot put into the vaccum bag.

It impressive how much a standard vacuum cleaner can do. Mould will come off on Wednesday night and I should hopefully have something to show for slalom so I'll see people there.

Helmets now scanned...

My designs have now been scanned by Gary Quinn from the Innovation Center at Teesside University. It was a weirdly quick process to scan once we had the angles right but then piecing all the parts together on the computer was in comparison slow and frustrating. The final scan of one side of the helmet mould was made up of over 85,000 polygons and it still looked a bit rough...

We scanned one side of the mould which was then mirrored to produst two identical sides. We also scanned the plug to create a 3D image which can be manipulated to create new designs and patterns although this has not been finished on the pc yet.

Next step is to contact some people called D-lab who can wrap the 3D construction in "smooth sheets" on a computer and then use this to model a new mould with different size of shape.

OOOK...so the first prototype didn't really work too well for a few reasons

1. Carbon fiber is a bastard to work with
2. Experimenting with different methods of applying pressure didn't work.
3. Gell coat too thick

On the plus side the helmet is solid as a rock. I might bring it to slalom so we can kick the sh*t out of it to see just how good it is. The weight of the first shell is 600gms something Ican definately improve on.