is it good to use a foam mold for the driver's seat?

[rani]

hey guys,
we are a first year team, and we want to create a mold for the driver's seat from 2 components foam. we saw that other teams used this technique, when they put the foam and than the driver(covered with a nylon bag) got inside is.
my question is how long it takes to finish this mold? is it a week or tow or longer?
thanks,

Ran
www.bgracing.com (http://www.bgracing.com)

[rani]

hey guys,
we are a first year team, and we want to create a mold for the driver's seat from 2 components foam. we saw that other teams used this technique, when they put the foam and than the driver(covered with a nylon bag) got inside is.
my question is how long it takes to finish this mold? is it a week or tow or longer?
thanks,

Ran
www.bgracing.com (http://www.bgracing.com)

[Dash]

it depends on how pretty you want to make it.
Last year I made a mold and seat in two days flat. That being said, I probably spent about 12-15 hours actually making the mold, then sanding it, coating it with a layer of fiberglass, and painting it. Layed up the carbon fiber, and let it sit overnight. Popped right out. Looked fairly ok, but had a few blemishes in it.

[Rotary Sprocket]

You could always go this route.

http://www.baldspotsports.com/products/index.html

The creafoam seat kits are pretty easy to use and the final product ends up being pretty light. Plus you don't have to bother with making a mold.

[BrendonD]

We are doing a carbon fiber seat, but we left the shell large enough so that each driver could have their own foam inserts for side bolsters and leg supports. That said, we made the mold from your average green foam and sanded it down (bondo-ing/finishing now). While the trashbag method is quick and dirty, the results leave much to be desired, the trashbags stick to the foam and get bunched up in the creases, plus that stuff is REAL messy when you sand it. The new method works pretty well, and we can have people sit in the mold in progress and nitpick it before we make the seat.

The expanding foam method is super easy to do and doesn't take long. Just make sure you don't overheat the driver (reaction generates heat), and plan to deal with the surface finish on the mold.

[RollingCamel]

It's good to see FSAE spreading into the ME. Good Luck.

[Lorenzo Pessa]

Be sure your driver is well dressed. the foam is very hot.

You can also put the bag, then the driver and insert the foam into the bag (be sure to put it in!)
wait a few of seconds then let the driver to sit definitively down.
We make in this way two years ago and worked pretty well.

Now we definitively switched to composite seat. Each driver has his own supports fixed with velcro.

[MegaDeath]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Rotary Sprocket:
You could always go this route.

http://www.baldspotsports.com/products/index.html

The creafoam seat kits are pretty easy to use and the final product ends up being pretty light. Plus you don't have to bother with making a mold. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

+1.
It might be an expensive option, but you can get a really nice final product that is very comfortable to sit in.

[Homemade WRX]

we had always operated on a tight budget and so we bought on basic, large, fiberglass go kart seat as the base. We boxed off the seat area with cardboard and sealed it up. We then did similarly to the bagging method with AB foam but would use the fiberglass seat to make the imprint and would use someone to simply weigh the seat down. Overflow was lopped off, bondo was used to make it into a mold and that was that. Took time but was cheap and simple. The fiberglass seat was then kept until the next year.