Rally West Virginia Trophies.

I have a friend I have met through rally Bill Caswell.  He has a polarizing affect on people.  He got laid off from the financial industry a few years ago and has been having some adventure since then.  He has Rallied all over the US, talked his way into parties of the rich and famous, and put stickers everywhere much to the chagrin of many car owners, hotels, bars, and governments.  I may not agree with that portion of what he does, but he puts a lot into promotion. Much of it self promotion, what he does behind the scenes rarely is mentioned as much as a sticker in an authorized place.   What he does to improve the Hobby (it's not sustainable, so it isn't an industry) that never gets publicized.

He asked me to help with a project on Wednesday afternoon a week prior to Rally West Virginia.  He was tasked with making trophies for RWV and had a short time frame.  At my day job we work in a fast paced prototyping environment where we "Quote in hours, Parts in days."  He was having issues with extracting cutting data from the graphic of the event.  I work with Spaceclaim during the day and knew it would make the design very easy.  I was not able to get to it until Friday afternoon after work but took in the data and quickly went into the design.  The image was junk as far as extracting data.  The edges were not crisp enough for automated tools.

The original Graphic for the rally

I imported the image into Spaceclaim and started to put some geometry to the original graphics.  I am used to designing for a CNC Laser Cutter so adjusting design for Waterjet would not be that hard.  Bill mentioned they would be for three places with three classes so I tried to do something that would pay homage to classic cars of yesteryear.   This is what I came up with for the first iteration

I had everything layered where all the items would be fastened to a black background  this would look pretty good, but assembly would be a pain.  You could just double stick the letters and layers together, but making sure everything would end up in the correct place.  Originally, I was going to do the fabrication at MakeIt Labs on the CNC plasma Cutter and powder coat everything.  I did not have the time to do the fabrication, so I spent a little extra time making it easy to manufacture by whoever Bill would have Jet cut it.  I inverted the color scheme so instead of twenty five separate parts it could be made with five.  

Connecting islands

When doing anything in a 2d single point cutting system (water jet, CNC Plasma, Laser, Router) it cuts along a tool path generated by the DXF.  If you have things that float, like the center of an A or R, you can either cut it out as a separate part, or make a bridge.  This is a delicate process that is reliant on experience with a specific tool.  In the case of Waterjet, it puts a large amount of force on the part if the bridge is to narrow and can blow it out.  If they are made separate, your often are fishing for small parts in the water catch.  

Assembled trophies. with color.  

I then broke out the backing so the outside had a boarder of yellow and the year circle would be broken off.  I pulled through holes for assembly so it could all be easily pop riveted together.  I used this to make sure everything is in the right place and it has a race feel to it.  I sent everything as separate files so all the components could be cut out easily.  

Expanded view of the assembly.  

I sent it all over to Bill and hoped everything would pan out.  

A week later I got this text and was super happy with the result.  The delivery constraint made powder coating or anodizing impossible.  Polished and assembled, they look fantastic.  

The finished product in Aluminum