Harry Levy Amusements gave Equinox Products just four weeks, running across the Christmas period, to produce a prototype 1m tall dinosaur for an exhibition in January.
Due to severe time restrictions, the 62 pieces, produced from fibreglass moulds, could not be produced from Cad design supplied by Auto Sport GP Engineering so David Challiss, managing director of Equinox Products, had to call upon the company's experience with the latest rapid prototyping technologies, choosing to have the prototypes 3D printed by additive manufacturing specialists KWSP and using one for producing the production moulds.
3D printers, such as those used by KWSP, have a relatively small printing volume so the component parts were broken down into smaller sections, making the moulds easier to produce, but they needed a strong and durable bond to be able to assemble them.
"We knew that Araldite would be ideal for this application and we also knew it was compatible with the plastic material the dinosaur was printed from.And it worked a treat," said Challiss. "We activated the bond surfaces with acetone to get good adhesion and the printed surface had a degree of roughness so it was ideal for bonding.We used Araldite Rapid and simply taped over the joints to hold the pieces together whilst the adhesive hardened."
With the bonding power of Araldite Rapid, the dinosaur prototypes survived the transit to and from the show and even the handling by visitors to the exhibit.
