Here is the first attempt at a fillet. I appreciate that it doesn’t look much from this distance (so there’s a close-up to follow). I’ve been using a 1″ ball and liquid wax dissolved in styrene as a lubricant. It helps if the plasticine is nice and warm and soft before one rolls it into a sausage and shoves it in.
However, I’ve got to stop now for a couple of reasons:
- the wooden frame supporting the polypropylene has come away from the chassis – the adhesive holding it together came away today. This is a bit frustrating. What it means is that the base isn’t as accurate as it should be, and isn’t as supported as it should be, meaning things may shift under the plasticine.
- I realised there’s still a little sanding to be done on the tunnel part to make it fit perfectly to the chassis. This is going to throw a load of dust about which will settle into the plasticine and contaminate the finish.
This is the filleted edge up close and again, it’s not easy to judge the finish. However, this is at the bottom of the tub and most of it will be covered by seat, so whilst I want the best finish I can make, I’m not going to get het up on making it perfect. I can always do a little post-finishing on the mould or even the part if the urge gets me.
Is it hard to get the filets looking good? and does the lubricant help much?
Not so tough when using the right filleting ball. The lubricant that i used was wax destined for some other other purpose (additive to gel coat), and it has a lot of styrene in so you need the doors open for definite. Gentle rubbing backwards and forwards seems to get the fillet into the right shape and it leaves track marks when the ball is completely touching at either side of the fillet. I’ve seen on crappy moulds that people just leave that residue there but using a body filler applicator gives a nice straight edge for scraping this away.