With the design and first pieces to make the negative mold complete, we moved on to creating our pieces. Using the silicone rubber, two molds were created. One utilized our CNC piece and the other utilized the 3D printed piece. When the rubber was poured in and it finally set, we received the negative molds needed to make the cast. The pegs and holes we designed worked as intended and allowed us to put things in the right space. The two pieces were tightly bound with rubber bands and the cast material was mixed and poured into the hole we made. After that it would just take 30 minutes to set.

The first one we made actually turned out poorly because it had started to set when we started to pour. Some also got clogged in the pour hole because we poured it in too quickly. The rest of our runs we made sure to pour it into the mold slowly and carefully. Air pockets were definitely an issue and we were seeing them mostly in the base of the piece.

By the end of this we had 8 good pieces to show for our efforts. Three are shown below.

Costs for this project would include material costs, labor costs, and software costs. The primary software used is Solidworks. An annual Solidworks license costs about $1300 so that would be $3.56 per day. We used Solidworks over a period of one month so the cost will be $106.8. Average labor wages in the US are $23/hour so with the two of us each working about 6 hours each would total $276. Finally the 3D print cost $7 for using carbon fiber, the silicon rubber costs about $50, and the cast costs about $25. The total for this project is $465.

Overall this was a fun final project and a cool way to end the semester. Thank you!