Puffin - Trial and error engineering

[Occupant]

Think I figured most of it out(maybe)? some holes were already there but hidden under the plug on the vacuum tool. I also realized it wasn't creating a vacuum so set it deeper to allow bridging toe the exterior first to create a seal and let the vacuum do its work. on top of all that I was so close to the vacuum hose couldn't draw down much. addressed all those issues and still having more issues - namely material size so far limited to what fits in the toaster over I'm using as a heat source. going to make a insulated foam hot box powered by a heat gun (internal baffled to prevent blowing up material like a balloon) and use a full sized sheet 11x17 vs something cut to fit within a toaster oven. am I missing anything else?

FYI hole on the top is thru serves double duty 1) pull vacuum when forming 2) drill location indicator for finished canopy 3) drain hole for air/water when diving/surfacing - the cockpit is perforated to do this as well

[Subculture]

Make sure any vent to vacuum is well below any area of plastic you wish drawn tightly over the mould.

[Occupant]

Back for third attempt at vacuum forming, still not getting it hot enough - went low tech with a heat gun vs buy/build a heat source. it started to drape but not quite soft enough. Once it started draping i hit the perimeter with the heat gun until it softened and the vacuum did its magic. got most of it, not all of it and one tiny little wrinkle in it. not bad for a third try.

[Occupant]

Switching gears again (printer was down with a broken belt). Have redesigned fin to fin arm joint - reduced part count and less play - i hope! Doing so changed the linkage routing a little that snowballed into adding big clearance radius on the servo mount. so had to pot in the servos in a new mount and thought i'd share the process a bit. 1) screw servo in the mount . the mount sets the servo slightly off the bottom to allow silicone to get under and around all sides. 2) install cap on the servo 3) tape joints - there will be leaks 4) mount servo in stand - sets the cup up pure vertical 5) mix silicone 6 ) transfer silicone into mount all the way to top. at this point its observe see if you have any leaks to fix with the tape job. very slow leaks will clot for lack of a better term and self seal after a bit slowly add silicone to backfill to the top. allow to cure. 7) remove from stand 8) remove cap 9) trim flash 10) apply super lube to servo output shaft exterior 11) slide silicone washer over output shaft 12) install servo horn. the washer is another seal bridging the gap between the servo and the servo horn. the super lube keeps the washer from getting stuck to one of the faces and fils any voids within the washer once closed making it harder for air/water to intrude.