This carbon fiber rocket payload shroud project started with three curves and two lines from the customer.  It turned into a year-long  project involving the design and machining of multiple patterns.

The 50' long assembly fixture is shown here.  I designed a special cradle for trucking the final assembly to the space coast.















This composite shows the relative size of some of the tooling.  All of this was created on a machine with a 20' x 10' x 6' work envelope.





































Primary Heat Shield tooling from the same project.  12' diameter was too too big for the machine, so I cut it in halves and it was assembled/sealed prior to tool molding.















The backup structure for molds of oven-cured composites must have reinforcing structures of similar CTE.  Here, shapes CNC cut from carbon/honeycomb stock exactly match bottom surface of mold.  They are designed to fit together like a puzzle using few unique parts for ease and accuracy of assembly.








This is a VERY rough example of how Solidworks can be used for plant layout.  Actual pictures can be pasted on solid walls.   This was used to give management a relative idea of how a large machine would fit in an existing room. 

On the bed of the machine, you see wing tip tooling.  This visual aide can be very powerful during a quote meeting with customers.

A plant layout model was critical in testing our ability to machine, tool, and assemble the huge parts shown above.