More of Something Old Made New Again

[Mike-Casella]

Here is the latest in the long line of molds for making mounts. This one is for the motor mounts on a 1936 Buick Series 80 Convertible. At first glance it looked like a pretty simple mount, but looks were deceiving as this took a total of 14 1/2 hours to whittle out a mold for it. The toughest part was figuring out exactly how to get all those different heights and corners to line up while keeping the mold "user-friendly". I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. The picture of the car is not the one these mounts are for, it's just to show what a 1936 Buick looks like.

[DanStokes]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

Mike, you do amazing work. Bet they can't send your job "offshore"!

Dan

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

Thanks. I don't see that happening. Might have something in the works, and if it happens, I'll be making a road trip to the Domican Republic to fine tune a customer's 1924 Kissel. That's about the only "off-shore" I'll be doing.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

how do you get the rubber in?

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

We hasve sheets of it that I cut and weight, then roll it on a machine. That changes the molecular (big word for me) structure of the rubber making it kind of squishy. The rubber is stuffed into the mold, on top of the steel plate you can see in one of the pictures. The mold is heated to 300 degrees and the top goes on and gets smushed down in the press putting about 25 to 30 tons of pressure on the entire mess. It is then cooked anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.

[squirrel]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

Can you tell us about your design/fab process for the mold parts? is it all done paper/pencil and manual machining, or is it done with cad/cam or some combination?

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

It's mostly done with paper/pencil, then it's off to the Bridgeport for some good old fashioned manual labor. I'd never leave here if I had a CNC machine.

[Brian Lohnes]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

The truly wacky part of this for me is that he does all the stuff free hand. That and the fact that Mike can "see" how the mold is going to work. My brain doesn't work too good that way, making this all the more impressive to my feeble self.

The heated presses came from an old Chrysler plant, I believe.

Brian

[squirrel]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

It's interesting to see the cars that you get to make parts for....they're pretty valuable cars, for the most part. I guess the guys who are into cheaper things like old Ramblers and GMC pickups can't afford your services?

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

Correct! The presses and other odds and ends including quite a few molds that I use to do these mounts all came from the R&D Department at Chrysler Corp.

Next in the line of "things to do" is a pair of mounts for a 1933 Marmon V16.

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

It's interesting to see the cars that you get to make parts for....they're pretty valuable cars, for the most part. I guess the guys who are into cheaper things like old Ramblers and GMC pickups can't afford your services?

Oh I wouldn't say that. Unless the customer wants to own the mold, all they pay for is the mount itself, which is very reasonable........ most of the time.

[mike343sharpstick]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

I like your technical terminology like, squishy and smushed ;D
I wish the engineers around here would use language like that.

[squirrel]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

Interesting, I'll keep that in mind....

[Mike-Casella]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

I like your technical terminology like, squishy and smushed ;D
I wish the engineers around here would use language like that.

After using the word "molecular" I had to get myself back to earth somehow. ;D

[70chevyC-10]

Re: More of Something Old Made New Again

My dad used to use thing-a-ma-jig and doo-hickey a lot.