How to make car parts in plastic?

I work in the IT industry by trade, but love working on cars and it's a big hobby of mine. Currently, if you want to make a part, you most likely would have to make it out of fiberglass spending countless of hours in the process. If you decide to sell the part, you would have to mass produce it sometimes having to order thousands of parts. This is not feasible to most since the funds and risk are high.

So I would like to start small and create a gauge pod. Basically a round pod where a gauge can be mounted. I'm starting to learn how to use Rhino so I can attempt to 3d model the piece. If you have any advice on which is the best software for 3d modeling, please offer such advice.

My question is, how do I 3d model an actual part? Lets say that I build the 1st gauge pod the old fashion way. Now I want to make a 3d model of that part so I can have it 3d printed. How would I do such?

Thanks.

Hi salvi,

Firstly I don't know Rhino, so can't say how to do in Rhino, however;

Creating a model needs visualisation, insight into how the real life things goes together and how to translate that into how the software handles things to recreate the real world thing.

Taking your guage pod as an example, I would start with the guage itself, measuring dimensions, mounting points, deciding how the pod mounts and making lots of notes, possibly a few sketches too.

The main body of the pod would probably be a radius cross section of the pod wall spun or lathed, add the pod mount and lastly make any holes for the guage mounting and wiring. Obviously the morel complex the finished item is going to be, the more visualisation and software knowledge is going to be needed.

Paul
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