nc_growler

That sounds like a great idea Jerry...

Jerry Feather

Today I worked on the redo of the S4 wheel arch forming segment. I had decided yesterday to change it some, actually in three respects, but over the night I decided that I need to change it in one more respect, and that is to change the angle of the surface that mates up to the inside of the fender just above the wheel arch. That took quite a bit of time to form all thje little wedges that I needed to epoxy to the original form component to change the angle. It is now curing out in the sun.

I also got one of the GTS wheel arch forming components sculpted to shape and will coat it with epoxy tomorrow and be ready to put it into service. I did get the pieces of material for the other side laminated and will cut, trim and sculpt that side tomorrow.

Now I have a lot of tooling to acomplish to fabricate the mounting pieces that are going to be needed to at least mount these in the S4 and GTS cars. I hope that in the process the GT cars will be included, but I don't have any hands-on information about how the original GT mounting system will relate to either the S4 or the GTS.

I'll try tomorrow to do the picture(s) that I suggested yesterday.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

These last three days have been pretty intense with this project. I have a lot of loose ends going with it, but have some of them coming to closure. I am almost complete with the change of the outer form pieces for the S4 cars and have the same pieces just about done for the GTS.

I also did some modification to one of the mounting pieces I had mocked up. I changed it so it fit the mounting angles better and provides more surface for a little broader connecting stance. Now all I have to do with two of them is execute the final versions in aluminum.

I put what I have so far back in the car and took a few pictures. I don't have any idea how they turned out, but I'll try here.

This first outer half does not fit that well and I have worked the form over to try to get it right. I think you can at least see how the outer halves will over or under lap the inner halves as shown is some of these pictures.

Jerry Feather

Gary Knox

Jerry,

Lookin' REAL good. Thanks for keeping us so well updated. I'm sure you are getting excited as well, as you see the concept coming together. Keep up the good work.

Gary

S4ordie

That is functional art to me. This is just great Jerry. Thank you.

Leon Speed

Great looking stuff!!

Jerry Feather

Thanks, guys, for the feedback.

Gary, I had you on my mind a lot the last few days because I was finally able to get to making the form components for the GTS liners and had the opportunity to use the pattern you so carefully made for me some long time ago. I trimmed it out down the the lines for the rocker and bumper cover and then traced it on the material for the form. Then I cut it out with my band saw and have been shaping them both with first the band saw and then the disc grinder and finally the wood rasp by hand. Then I have to cover the rough surface with epoxy and shape it again. I have found lthat I can rasp the epoxy enough steadily to make the rasp too hot to hold. So, today I went to Sears and bought a couple more rasps so I can interchange them to cool off. I think I have about three or four hours of rasping to finish all four of these form components up. And, that is only if I have the angle correct on the GTS forms.

I also may have found another source for some connectors that are a little less than a buck apiece. I found some at the regular hardware store for 60 cents each. I hope that they might work and that there might be some way to buy several hundred of them for much cheaper. Maybe I will go online and see what can be found.

Now, I have to concentrate on getting ready for Herman's visit so that I can have everything set up to use his GTS for making mock-ups of the GTS mounting connectors. I wrote up an outline today of just how we will need to do that and think it will go pretty well in the time allowed. I have to finish out the inner liner halves that we are going to work with, but I should be able to get that done in the next couple of evenings.

Thanks again.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

This was a really interesting weekend on this project. Herman And Barbara from Dallas were here with their GTS specifically for the putpose of doing some measuring and fitting of what I had and could create for fitting the the GTS while they were here.

Herman and I spent much of Saturday fitting a pair of inner halves to his GTS and we discovered a couple of issues that need to be dealt with in regard to final production for the inner halves.

After we got the inner halves pretty well fitted we devoted our time to first forming a pair of outer halves and trying to fit them. We found that they were off a reasonable amount and then we worked the form over and tried again. We got another pair of outer halves made and trimmed the right side and found out that it is getting closer, but not quite.

By then, I think we kind of ran out of time, but I think I now have enough information about what to do with the form for the outer halves to be able to come really close.

Actually, with the second try on the outer halves Herman kept saying that the problems I found were "no problem" and in fact, in regard to the original liners that Herman has, which are in really great shape, the problems I found are pretty insignificant. Nevertheless, they are aspects that I think need to be dealt with in order to provide the quality of product that you guys here deserve.

Now, I need to work the form for the outer halves over again and probably including making all four of the wheel arch form components over. That is probably going to be more time efficient that trying to glue material on the present ones and doing them over rather that simply starting from scratch. The nice thing is that I now understand the shape a whole lot better, and almost entirely attributed to the effort of Herman K bringing his GTS here for me to work with. What a benefit that has been. And what a nice Friend or Friends we have made in he and Barbara.

This Forum and its peope rock.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

One of the things that I am learning about forming the components for these liners in my freshly created "Blow Oven" is that I can apply what little I learned in my Hight School Physics class about heat. It can be transferred by radiation, by convection and by conduction. In my process it is being transferred only by radiation and convection, and not any conduction since none of the plastic is coming in contact with the heat coils.

What I am learning is that the radiation can be controlled by putting aluminum window screen in the way of the radiation and that the convection can be assisted by introduction of tiny bits of the air that I am using to plow the plastic into form.

What I am continuing to learn is just how to balance the placement of the screens and the introduction of bits of air while the plastic is heating and just before the plastic is soft enough to form and before the major amount of air is introduced to get the final form. It is turning out to be a real technique.

The object is to get the plastic hot enough in the very center first so it can be blown thin and then to the top of the form where it hits the form itself and then stops forming and in fact starts to cool and then having the rest of the plastic in the outer perimeter of the sheet do the forming of the part to be made. With that approach it makes the center pretty thin and allows more material to be left for the product. So far it is working pretty well, but needs further practice to get it just exactly right.

I wish some of the rest of you could be here to watch, like Herman and Barbara were this weekend. I think they were really impressed with the process, even though it is actually fairly basic.

Jerry Feather

Herman K

Hereby the official (ribbon cutting) switching-on picture of Jerry and Barbara does the honors of the first outer liner to be blown on Jerry Feathers blow molding form.

After we spend a great working weekend with Jerry and his wife we can say he is the “master” of creating and designing tooling for 928 parts he really does this as a labor of love for the 928 model and the community is lucky to have his talents available.

Having seen the process life from start to finish we have learned that making the liners is quite labor intensive and as Jerry does this in his spare time I’m impressed giving up wrenching time on his own cars in order to make these liners is some thing that many of us wouldn’t do.

The net results of his efforts will be a set of liners that are easy to remove and re-install for any required maintenance and above all are made of materials that will more than likely outlast the life span of any 928 on the road today.

Jerry a job well done!! We look forward to road test your liners ASAP.

Pictures attached are the official switching on of the first outer GTS liners blown and the “MASTER” working of the fine tuning and fitting of his creations on our GTS.

Herman K

I've been trying to make some corrections and additional posting but my hotel wi-fi keeps dropping my connection so more later.

S4ordie

Fantastic! Really looking forward to these liners being available in the near future.

Damn Jerry, That pic of you ruined my mental image of you as some crazy haired eccentric nutty professor type. You look like a normal guy with mad skills. Keep up the great work!

Gary Knox

Jerry, Herman, and Barbara,

I have only one word for the current status of this project, and your contributions to it:

WHOOPEEEEEE!

Gary-

NoVector

+1 If you're doing pre-orders, count me in! BTW - Great work and THANKS!

Jerry Feather

Well, there went two of the images I had been trying to foster without posting any pictures of them. One was of me and the other was of my blow forming contraption. I had been trying to foster an image of the contraption that was some kind of magical scientific hightech devise that would take thousands of dollars to replicate. The other image, of me, I was just letting form however it might for those who have never met me. I will always wonder how different I really am from those other images previously developed and now, perhaps, destroyed.

On the project, I have said a couple of times in the past that progress is defined as movement in any direction. Now I find that there may be some real truth to that saying. A major result of Herman's being here with his GTS is that I have discovered a couple of design flaws that really need to be dealt with at this point. What I have decided to do about that is to do over all four of the forming components for the wheel arch of the outer liner halves. That seems like a significant step backward, especially since I seemed so very close with what I have done so far, but which is going to solve the problems found and get me going in a more perfect direction.

I came home early today from the office to start the forms over, so will get off here and get to work. Nice to hear from all of you who have shown some interest.

Jerry Feather