Great Scott! It’s another Hoverboard build thread...

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Nothing much to report, very lightly rubbed down the primer to give a flat, smooth finish and then whacked it with a coat of neon pink

Here's after the first coat.

A very light rub down and then a second coat...

It's not perfect, I can see some small imperfections here and there, but I'll never get the damned thing done if I try to get rid of every single blemish... :lol

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Sized the image files that I have for the decals to my board and then transferred them into foxit pdf reader which allowed me to print them off "posterised"
From that I cut them up, lined them up and stuck them (temporarily) together on the back side with masking tape and then used Helix Clearseal book cover film to protect and enhance the look of the printouts... Here's how it ended up.

Here's a photo of the cover film

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

I took the vector graphic image of the board layout, which although I now know it to be the wrong size. I can still use it to estimate the size of the doodads on the underside, as long as I perform the appropriate and correct scaling. So I split what I needed into several sections and figured out what I needed.

Kinda like this...

I went off and cut a piece of 6mm MDF at a diameter of 165mm and sanded it smooth. Well, as smooth as I could...

Tried to make a jiggy thing to cut a perfect circle in one go. It failed dismally...

So, I cut it out manually with my trusty jigsaw. Imagine my surprise when I found it was a bit too big! My scaling brain is obviously a bit off...

Amended cutting followed.

That seemed better when I threw it onto the board... By the way, here's what the board looks like with the decals laid upon it.
The pink is a bit bright I think, but as it is supposed to be a little girls plaything, I am going with it.

In case you are wondering, I am intending to drill out where the black circle is, probably go about 1/2 way through. You never know, I might add a handle one day...

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Having resized the thinner, larger disc, from that I estimated what the thicker chamfered disk should be like. This was cut out and I used my trusty block plane to chamfer all around the circle to get the angle I needed. This was a real pain by the way!
They were stuck together with good old pva adhesive.
That stuff is great for MDF...

Have been scratching and wracking my little brain to figure out what to make the clamps (is that the right word?) out of as they do need to step over and around the disks.
In the end I went with 3 or 4mm EVA foam. Here they after a quick bit of cutting out.

My thought was that I could use my heat gun to soften the eva foam and get it to go around those pesky disks.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Some test fitting followed and lo, it was acceptable...

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

The larger clamp I have made 1cm longer so that it will go under the battery pack. My intention is to router out a channel so that it sits a bit within the battery. This will look better in my opinion rather than it just going up to it... Again, just my take on it.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Was not happy about the chamfer that I put onto the smaller disk, but I could not think of how to really improve it without spending hours rubbing it down by hand.
Then after having to get up at 3am one morning for a bathroom visit...!
I had an epiphany. How about I drill a hole through the centre of the disk assembly, run a bolt and washers through it. Hold it in position with a well placed nut, and throw it into my battery drill.
Whereupon I can start it spinning and hold my sandpaper against it and get it done in seconds.
I was so excited about this idea it took me ages to get back to sleep!

sleep

And here is the result...

Wasn't too happy with how this went so tried something else...

Much better!

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Some more thoughts were thunk(!) on how to attach the clamps to the, now completed, disk assembly.
Best I could figure was to get a dry fit made as best I can using my heat gun to mould the eva foam around the steps. Then coat both with some contact adhesive and hold them together with all my hands and strength!

This is the result...

I would show you the other clamp, but I ruined it by trying to cut little slits to help the foam bend. Unfortunately, with the application of heat from my craft gun, the slits expanded and became holes---! :facepalm

Time to cut another small clamp then. Oh wait, I need to print off a template first from my original drawing. Dammit! :lol

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

The printing was done and cut out, stuck onto some 3 or 4mm eva foam and carefully cut out...

It went quite well and has fairly tidy edges.

Some fitting and shaping ensued, with much gnashing of teeth when my heat gun literally blew up! Several hours later having purchased a suitable replacement, service was resumed and ultimately, contact adhesive applied.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

I have decided that I cannot face having to make more disks and clamps, I just can't do it... :cry

However, this gives me the excuse, sorry, reason, to purchase a load of silicone rubber and polyurethane so that I can take a mould of the assembled unit in silicone and from that make a couple of castings. Might even do the battery while I am about it...

To that end, I had to get my trusty plasticine out of the bag.

After which some double sided tape was applied to the clamps, because the damned things would not sit flat and a slathering of vaseline was applied to the underside of the disk to avoid any silicone slipping underneath...
And in it was slapped!

I guesstimated the silicone and ended up making 1Kg of rubber with 50g of catalyst, this was vigorously mixed and gently poured onto the part.

Now the hard part, waiting 24 hours (minimum) for it to cure... :ninja

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

That's pretty much it for now boys and girls, I am all caught up. So updates will not be coming so thick and fast.

Just for those who might be (and I use the term loosely!) interested, I actually started work on this on the 6th of July at around 6pm British Summer Time. :angel
This is not taking into account the hours and hours of research made previously into the details of that darned hoverboard...

By the way, here is a photo of the red primer I used. I dunno, someone may be interested... :cool

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Do I tell my fiancée about the bowl, or just hide it until the silicone sets and I can just pull it all off and give it a wash and put it away?

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 16, 2018

Right, this is totally the last thing I can do for the next 24 hours or so... Made a frame that will hold the plaster of paris that I will pour in to reinforce the silicone mould once it is set. It's gonna be a long 24 hours...

I should get minimal distortion when I am ready to cast with the polyurethane resin.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 17, 2018

Okay, having cleaned off all of the plasticine, NOW I am ready for the plaster of paris...

Of course I do have to wait until it is delivered!

razorsharp192 · Jul 17, 2018

Looks good, good to see another UK hoverboard maker! I wouldn't have thought you'd need to put a plaster or paris support frame around that mould to be honest, going by the pics of the mould you made it looks like it'll be sturdy enough on it's own (i probably would've had the sides closer to the parts to save on silicone), the casts wont be heavy so wont push out the sides of the mould.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 18, 2018

Thanks for the input, it’s just that I am borderline paranoid on this, never having moulded and cast something so large before. So I wanted to do all I can to make it as sturdy as possible. Especially as I may be making a second board down the line.

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 18, 2018

Not an exciting photograph, but it does show the silicone mould encased in plaster of paris.

Just have to until the next day so that I can wiggle it about and get it to release from the worktop surface. Bit worried how that is going to go. I really should have used a piece of scrap MDF to do this with so I could easily turn it over when it is all dried out. But I didn't...

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 18, 2018

So, I waited until the next morning and managed to force it off the worktop surface... I did damage a part of the assembly itself. But as that is not actually going to be needed, not a biggie. Although I would have prefered it not get damaged.

Just have to get the darned thing out of the silicone.
Carefully...

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 18, 2018

The extraction process was completed, but not without incident!

However, the mould itself seemed to weather the storm quite well.

I gave it a thorough washing with good old fairy washing up liquid and dried it off with a kitchen towel. So it is all ready to go after some cleanup of the edges!

Retrograde Orbit · Jul 18, 2018

Thought that it would be a good idea to mix my polyurethane resin with a bit of grey pigment so that it will be easier to see the imperfections from the casting that will almost certainly be there whether they be bubbles from the mixture or issues with the mould itself.

Trouble is that I either added too much pigment or the pigment has passed its best before date. But the mix frothed up like a rabid dog...

It has risen over the surface of the mould by at least 2 or 3mm making it pointless to use as it will take me hours to sand that all back down to where it should be. Also I am not convinced that there will not be numerous bubbles on the upside of the casting too.
Very annoyed at this turn of events, waste of time and polyurethane resin... :angry

Great Scott! It’s another Hoverboard build thread...

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