bigfredio9

has anyone upgraded their trim kit to real brushed aluminum, i dont like the synthetic plastic crap..if any has or knows a place that makes trim kits of REAL brushed aluminum let me know

slo007

That would cost a good sum of money, and add substantial weight to your car. Plus, in a serious accident, it's best to have plastic in front of you than metal...

bigfredio9

the tl comes with real brushed aluminum and its awesome..i wouldnt mind the extra weight..i think its worth it

kiteboy

Aluminum is among the least dense of metals (2.9g/cm3) if memory serves. In the thicknesses used for trim, it would weigh neglibly more than plastic. The serious cost is fabricating lots of different shaped pieces in relatively low volumes.

Dan Martin could probably answer this: what's the best way to fabricate such pieces - stamping?

slo007

I think CNC is best. I could model the parts in SolidWorks, put an Al block in the CNC machine and let it do the job. It has all the tools it needs. The only cost for me is the Al. Forgot how much it costs.

Afterwards, the chips could be melted and used in the net shape class. Makes one wonder... but I don't have the time.

bigfredio9

thatd be awesome...i wonder if there are places like that here in miami

Dan Martin

slo007 if you're thinking about machining replacement trim out of solid aluminum you're seriously hardcore! 6061 T6 is going for around $3/# and I can't imagine what the development time would be for all the pieces. Unless you have a serious CMM and could reverse engineer the part automatically it would take for ever to get it just right. I'm sure you could buy every mod available for the TSX for less than it would cost to develop those pieces. That being said, it would look amazing.

Kiteboy, stamping would certainly work and you could get curves bent into the pieces so they line up with the trim nicely. The problem is you'd have to make a die that is probably just as complicated and way more expensive than just machining it out of solid. That is unless you plan on making 10,000+ sets...

I would use a thin AL sheet and have it water cut to shape. I'd use some sort of adhesive for the back and just bend it manually over the surface of the trim. It would take a lot of trial and error to design all the shapes so that when you bend it it conforms to the surface nicely. The area between the center console and the steering wheel would probably be the hardest. This method would be the cheapest by far and water cutting offers a beautiful finish to all the edges.

musicbox

CNC for low volume, stamping for high volume.

photo-etch, or wire are possiblities, but with additional work.

Dan Martin

What line of work are you in musicbox?

musicbox

I do plastic injection mold design.

The company I work for does metal stamping, and injection molding but also specializes in full automation of it. Meaning, we will have a die before molding, the stamping will go into the molding machine, get molded, go into another die, get tested(cameras, and/or dielectric or whatever is needed) singulated and packed without any one ever touching the parts. And there's many variations on this, basically we will design and build everything needed to do it and run it.

I've been doing mold design for 7-8 years, but I have only just started in Jan. doing design for continuous strip molding.

We design everything in 3D in Pro/Engineer, I also do a little CNC programming, lately for custom parts for cars for friends, hehe.

And I've gotten to do a little automation design, too.

www.sunmicrostamping.com

Dan Martin

Neat business! I've never been through a plastics company before so maybe the next time I'm in Florida I'll give you a shout.

I'm into production volume CNC machining, mostly in the agricultural industry. We've got 10 dual-spindle CNC lathes with live tooling, 6 Vertical mills and two horizontals.

musicbox

Sure, come on down. All the automation is really cool to see, if you're into manufacturing.