The original Chrysalis/Ridgewing carbon fiber grills were designed in 1998. A number of carbon fiber molding shops were approached to see about making them, but the universal answer was that no one had a clue how to do it. The intricate fine grillwork design was unprecedented.  I was on my own. 

Starting from zero, over the better part of a year I had to teach myself how to become a carbon fiber fabricator able to make parts that no one else in the industry could make. It was a supreme struggle every step of the way. The fine grillwork patterns required that the mold halves be very precisely registered, be able to take care of “squeeze-out” after the mold was closed, and eliminate any bubbles in the finished part.  And do all this in a very crowded 23 sq. meter (250 sq. ft.) home shop with the most basic power tools- wobbly band-saw, very un-precise table saw that rocked, slightly out-of-alignment drill-press, a basic bench-top belt sander and a window-mounted fan for ventilation.

After many false starts and a lot of silicone going in the trash over several months, I finally succeeded in making two-piece silicone molds for both grills that were free of mold-surface defects, that could precisely register to each other, and that included enough “vias” and vent tubes in the right places to let any excess epoxy or bubbles escape.

The molds were filled with carbon fiber pieces in a process that might be imagined as dragging pieces of yarn through molasses, then being laid into the mold with large wooden tweezers. It took about two hours for two people working as a team to fill each mold, which was done in the afternoon. The epoxy originally used was West System slow-set marine epoxy, which had the disadvantage of not curing as hard as more advanced technical thermo-set polymers, but which made up for this by being easy to work with, easy to get at any marine supply store in small quantities as needed, simple to mix and amenable to hand-working techniques.

After leaving the mold closed overnight, the grills were taken out while still slightly green and immediately cleaned up and de-flashed with an Xacto knife and carbide de-burring tool – some 250 holes between the grill tendrils in all, each with carbon fiber and epoxy flash, which took several hours. To finish the curing process, the grills were screwed down onto precisely fitting plaster & burlap forms, and then, when the cook wasn’t home, put in the kitchen oven and put through a couple of heating/cooling cycles to finish the curing process. When the grills came out of the oven, they were as hard as they would every be, and ready to make music.