If you can't hide the embedded steel, and you can still see it through your clear colorized resin, how about flipping the flaw into an advantage? You could paint the name of your custom shop or pinstripe it? I'm imagining a crazy 50's looking translucent candy red steering wheel full of glitter flakes with a pinstriped & autographed core. It's either gonna be sweet or make it look like a clown car! You'd also have to create dash and shift knobs to match.
you could use stainless, polish the hell out of it, drill some holes in it..that might be pretty cool. I like the striping idea too. I'm invisioning a crazy 'lectric blue wheel with gold and silver flake...to match the 394 olds powered '38 Pontiac gasser I have brewing in my head, and partially brewing in the garage...
Hey Jethro, liked your little how to on the steering wheel. Back in the day I taught a little Plastics Technology so if you don't mind a couple of pointers to improve your compression mold idea here goes. First, apply a couple good coats of clear urethane finish on your mold. This allows you to get a smoother mold surface by filling the pours and promotes a better release of the mold release wax. Second, take some Wax Paper to cover the mating side of one of the molds, if you if you staple it to the dies it will be enough to hold in place, you can use a razor knife to trim it to open up the area of the mold cavity. By doing this it will allow the mold to pop apart easier because the excess resin doesn't stick to the waxy surface. Third, as you begin the molding process brush in a coating of liquid resin in the mold cavities, by doing this you can eliminate some of the surface bubbles and imperfections. Fourth, the hardest part is to determine the consistency of the resin batch so don't be afraid to thin down the batch to a point that it just begins to flow if you put a teaspoon full on a flat surface. Fifth, in a simple mold like this is easy to get trapped air so its a good idea to put a few small runner ports at the edge of the mold to allow air or excess material to migrate to. You can sand this flash off later. And last if you really want to get fancy with your vacuum cleaner you can make a vacuum bag up to help remove the air bubbles but thats getting more complicated. Anyway nice bit of backyard workmanship. Paint that baby up and show us your result.
Wow!, Thanks Dick! That's the kind of feedback I need. I'm just making this up as I go.A lot of trial and error...especially error! What kind of resin do you think I should use? there are so many choices and they are all generally pretty expensive....especially if you error. I like the idea of a transparent wheel but again ,not sure which resin to use. Any experience with castable rubber like urethane or silicone? Around here where it can get cold flexible might be a better choice. Thanks for the feedback....Jeff
Using partall paste, available at you fiberglass supply shop, should take care of mold release problems. Great Job on the WHEEL!!!
Man that wheel looks great, I think you could sell a bunch of them if you put them in kit form, if they were priced right.
This is the best tech article that I have seen on the HAMB and will be very useful. Thanks for sharing you knowledge with us. Joe
Well the idea I had was to use a Clear Poly Resin, they sell it all over the web (just type in clear casting resin) or you can get it at Micheals or Hobby Lobby too... I posted a link for a resin, dye, and flake above...there are alot more choices but it's just what I ran across.. I'm going to be doing one in an electric blue with warm beer(gold) and surfite silver roth flake....Hopefully it turns out!
Yummy..... I'll do a tech or add to this one when I start it...I just got a wheel center, and I'm waiting for all the other stuff to come in the mail...hopefully this will work.
SWEET !! I love seein' how peoples minds work...This is what makes Americans the leaders. Nice work.....keep that stuff comin'
I was wondering how long it would take Ol Skool Chevy to figure out that the post wasn't by an American----As for Americans being the leaders, I wonder if he's ever heard of China---
Yeah , I said I would do a tech piece after I made the 4 spoke.....all sorts of different styles roaming around in my head now!
One way to avoid seeing the steel inner rim would be to cast the wheel twice. Make a smaller mold and cast a background or base color that works with your choice of flake (think contrasting or complimentary colors). Then, using a larger mold, recast using the clear resin with the flake suspended. Not sure if that's how the commercially available ones are made but I think it would work. You could then stripe or airbrush (hell even apply vinyl or waterslide decals to) the base rim before applying the clear/flaked layer. Also, could you not drill a few "vent holes" and pressurize the cavity once it's filled with resin to force out any air? Wouldn't need much pressure, sure don't want a geyser of expensive resin shooting all over the shop Steve
You've just solved my steering wheel delema, I bought a 1940 cad banjo for 10 bucks but need a rim. Was going to piece together a tiger wood rim but like your idea better, would be 950$ for a refurb! Now i also know how to cast a horn button for it!
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