I have a cnc machining center. I have seen similar blue foam used for checking toolpaths and making trial pieces. Nothing to do with autoclaving. Very simple to machine without tool wear and no coolant. I don't have a need for it right now but wanted the trade name so I could Google to see where to get it locally (Cape Town). Was amazed to read that Trelleborg stuff is strong enough for metal forming.marcush. wrote:depron is a expanded polystyrene foam and used as core material...it is not very good in compression...in fact it is common practise to crush it in the molding process to size ...so not really something you want to use as a jig...sorry.
normally you would do your jigs in the same material as your parts -so you can cure with a thermal process without having to make allowances for different expansion rates of jig and parts. ..when no tempering necessary you would use the stiffest material that is easy to machine to exacting tolerances ..tooling block ..aluminium as an alternative or steel ..or carbonfibre.
thanks for confirming the tooling block ,axson is obvious choice....but cold bonding on these parts ?due to timing constraints? or is thermal curing just too much of a hassle?polarboy wrote:As stated the blue material is tooling block,not a foam .Its used to make mostly all the patterns an lots of jigs,for the front wing its a cold bonding jig so heat isnt an issue
Product shown is from axson but there are lots about from ACG (TB650,720),Amber,axson to name a few
Diffrent to machinist,s wax that is used to test tool paths,but it could be used but tooling block isnt cheap !