CASE STUDY: Rodin Cars Plug Machining
Jackson Advanced Engineering helped Rodin Cars bring their CAD design to life.
CUSTOMER: Rodin Cars
PROJECT: F-Zero Monocoque Plug Machining
MATERIALS: Kiwi Tooling KT-P720 Polyurethane Tooling Board
Rodin Cars required a plug for their new F-Zero single seater race car to be machined – the plug will be used to create carbon fibre moulds for the race car monocoque (the main structural body of the race car). The Jackson Industries Advanced Engineering team had been recommended to Rodin Cars and together, we got to work bringing their CAD design to life.
Kiwi Tooling KT-P720 Polyurethane Tooling Board was chosen for this project as it holds very fine details and has good machineability. 50mm and 75mm tooling board blocks can be hand-cut, arranged and laminated to create stock for machining.
Material selection was important as the required detail, finish and post processing of the plug determines the type of tooling board to be used. The overall plug is very large and heavy once machined. It is 1.9 x 0.9 x 0.7m and would weigh over 400kg!
Fixturing the original plug as designed for machining all as one piece would be a challenge as extra machining operations and time would be required to make cradles and maneuvering the plug into new positions would be a logistical nightmare. The decision was made to split the plug in half for machining, this allowed us to reach all areas of the parts easily and even use very small tools for the fine details using 5-Axis toolpaths while the parts were only fixed in one position solidly for the entirety of machining.
Click here to read more information about Jackson Industries Advanced Engineering Large Format 5-Axis Machining.
Please click here for a brief video of this project, and get in touch if we can assist you with your machining project.