Hi Guys
I got the molds for casting the Feifil unit parts the other day. I have posted pictures of sample castings, to make these parts took 5 molds, unfortunately one mold ended up with bad parts and this will need to be made again.
I still have not been able to make the hoses to my satisfaction. The options for making these hoses is in rubber, resin or metal. Each one has it's drawbacks. Rubber will make them flexible to follow the contours of the engine deck, but the rubber requires a spacial flexible paint which means you would not be able to paint it the same as your tank color. Metal would be the best material as the real ones are metal, but bending it has it's problems as white metal breaks easily if bent to much. Still planning on making a test shot of this to see what can be done. Resin is most likely the best way to go as light heating will allow the resin part to bend. More on these once I have done some more tests.
The problem with the bad cast parts is the elbows of the metal hoses from the main containers to the flexible hoses. The masters were made in a low temp soft metal and under the pressure of the vulcanizers they collapsed, you can see the results in the last picture. To over come this I will be making a cold pour mold of these so I can spin cast new masters to put into a new mold. Fortunately I only gave one set of these parts to the mold maker and still have a good set to make the new masters from.
63 white metal parts in set. 4 hoses, 4 wing nuts, 4 sets of hose clamps, 6 x chains and assembly/fitting nuts and bolts not shown.
Sample of bad castings.
Hose detail
Regards
Mike