Once the wire frame has been laid over the top of the wooden frames of the "plug" the tooling shop sprays a tooling foam on to the form. This is the first rough step in creating the mold surface.
At this point the plug is located on the bed of a very large router. The router "table" measures 6o feet in length by 30 feet in width and has a vertical axis of almost 14 feet. Tooling reference points on the part and the frame allow the operators to locate the part exactly where it needs to be for the routing operation. The machines computer is loaded with the designers detailed drawings of the part. In this case it’s the deck plug they are working on.
Once everything is in place the routing operation can begin. Here’s a picture of the milling head with a bull nosed router bit in place beginning the first cut on the bow of the deck plug.
