28 oktober 2019 - Random
We visit the foundry where they cast all tooling… this has to happen somewhere…:)
Shin, Niels and Andy are all ready for it, safety first!
Here the styrofoam is coated and placed in to big steel cages. They fill up the cage with sand and closed to poor liquid metal in.
The styrofoam melts away, and the perfect form of the part stay inside the moulds.
The perfect start to mill out the perfect tooling for the part.
Remember there’s always three tooling necessary; Male, female and overhead. so three castings necessary for every tooling!
The grey parts below are coated styrofoam models…
In close up they look like this…. this is coated styrofoam… ready to go in the cages…
The trees growing here literally out of the restroom….:)
After casting and cleaning, some small parts might be necessary for adjustment, this happens by welding… this is how freshly cast steel moulds do look….
This is an iron pouring bucket. The pouring of liquid metal happens at night only to save on energy costs… sorry we didn’t gave up our sleep to capture that…:)
How they fill the cages up with sand, the styrofoam is already inside…
The tooling are huge as you can compare dimensions with the workers on top of it, these are regular man, no dwarfs…:)
The breaking of the sand from the metal once it comes out of the cages… a pretty dusty work…
Don’t we all like the industrial views of factories brave enough to make our parts? You bet!
We continu our factory visit report tomorrow so stay tuned!!
27 oktober 2019 - Random
It’s definitely over 12 years ago since Bob started to find a right manufacturer for the early beetle fenders… He inquired in many factories, in South America, Europe and Asia. Till he found a partner at our Silver Weld Through factory…
We started the tooling in 2015, over 4 years ago, 4 long years, but the result is stunning!
Dear friends,
May Bob introduce you the BBT tooling for the BBT early beetle fenders.
These tooling are an exclusive joint venture between the Silver Weld through factory and BBT and the fenders will be exclusively available through the BBT distribution network.
Worldwide that is….
This is what we need to press you one pair of fenders, actually the last restrike tool is not finished yet, and the tools for the headlight buckets are neither in the picture…
US$ 350.000 investment, only to bring you, the Volkswagen aficionado, the perfect fender!
No compromise!
See the series of tooling compared to Bob or the big 10 ton capacity forklift (or to Bob somewhere in between)…
Can You imagine the size and weight????
The VW journalists who joined me this trip went all over the place when they saw our tooling.
They captured at least a thousand pictures!!
Hot VW’s magazine editor Shin brought out his drone to capture our tooling for the tetris challenge, and for his feature in HOT VW’s magazine, this blog is written with his personal permission…
Make sure not to miss out on Hot VWs magazine that feature this trip and the fender tooling!
They need a 10 ton forklift to drive the tooling around…
This is only the female tooling of the first hit tool…
There’s 8 stampings needed , so 8 sets of tools, male, female and drophead…
Times two for left and right… that’s a LOT of castings!
… and we didn’t talk about the headlight bowl yet…:)
Next “flat tetris picture” is voted the most funny shot of the trip by all of us…
Picture credit goes 100% to Airmighty editor Niels.
Thanks for sharing this with us Niels!
Ok, now… some words… words of Thank You….and deep respect.
Especially and before all to Mr GT, the deep drawing pressing genius, unbelievable. If I was hindoe, and believed in reincarnation, MR GT was a deep draw press in his previous life. Because he was so good and stamped so well, he came back as a human being to operate and coordinate presses! Unbelievable knowledge this man has!
Second, Kevin LO my direct and daily contact in the factory; Kevin, I know You went very deep on “our” fender project, I like to thank You very personally. Also out of the complete VW community for bringing this product to us… it will help to make so much more cars so much better…
I also like to thank Hot VW’s Shin, Airmighty Niels and Camper and Commercial Andy for their support during this trip on my project… the many pictures, posts and the fun we had!
Last but no last I like to thank out of the deepest of my heart my whole BBT team, without you guys, this fender project could not had even started!
Thank You, thank You, thank You to everybody, we made it!!
The 49-59 beetle front fender is almost finished,
First container estimated to arrive @ BBT HQ February or March 2020.
Pre orders been taking now…
Dealer inquires always welcome!
Don’t delay contact BBT today…
Frederik@BBT4VW.com or Stephan@BBT4VW.com
Info@BBT4VW.com
26 oktober 2019 - Friends of the house