Course set, all ahead full

Having discovered our method of construction i then set about designing the first mold, wanting to make a bit of it before going the whole-hog and finding it wasn't as easy as it had sounded. The only component that really struck us as being the toughest to crack was the cylinder head, bits of pipe and blocks could make up most of the engine but the heads were quite a complex shape. Using the photograps and dimesion details we had taken from the engine in the museum i started to extract the information i needed to build my own component. Putting all the dimensions onto AutoCAD, enabled me to play with them and make them fit, until i ended up with a graphical model of what i was looking at on the photographs. Having made the graphical model i needed to work out how to replicate it as accurately as possible. My first idea was to use a crude method borrowed from a rapid-prototyping process, using layers of paper cut and bonded to make the shape, the fineness of each layer giving an accurate surface finish. A few quick calculation and i realised that the size of the model would involve hundreds of layers.... hmm, time for a plan 'B'. Sticking with the same idea but wanting less layers i turned to MDF, bizarrely the graphical model disected perfectly into 6mm layers, begging the question was that how the original was made? Was Antoinette's real genius in discovering MDF 50 years before the rest of the world?? Probably not, but it seemed too convenient.

MDF is great stuff to work with (especially now they have stopped making it with toxic bonding elements), its easy to work, holds a good edge and is relatively hard wearing. So i laid out each of the layers on CAD, then scaled them to allow for shrinkage, printed the layers out, cut them out and stuck them to the MDF with PVA glue. Now i had all 18 layers glued to the board, laid out like some bizarre puzzle without a picture to work to. Taking a jigsaw to each of the pieces i slowly built up the layered model to the point where it actually started to look like something.