Why Car Companies Still Use Clay Models That Cost Up To $650K | Big Business | Insider Business

This machine is carving a life-size Ford Mustang from hundreds of pounds of

clay

. It is arguably the most important step in designing a car, although most car owners know nothing about the process. Car

companies

have used

clay

models

for almost a hundred years. every car you see on the road, from this mustang to this $28 million Rolls Royce. I mean, every night I'll run into people who don't understand the concept of why we would make a full-size car out of clay and then finish it. In a way that it looks exactly the same as the production vehicle, but nowadays

companies

are moving away from clay modeling, it is an expensive process that goes up in price depending on the company and the complexity of the vehicle.

Exotic hypercar. Brands like Bugatti have gone down. More than 650,000 car manufacturers now have high-tech virtual reality software that allows them to design and examine every inch of their cars. So why do some companies

still

use up to a hundred tons of clay each year and why do some

models

take years to build? They are built in Top Secret studios that are even more restricted than manufacturing plants within the designers develop vehicles that have not even been announced yet, this is area 51 of the automotive industry. Yeah, I mean, we work in a secure facility where there are only a few members of the site that you can actually enter, so you need special permits to get in here Mark Sadler has been a clay modeler for decades and now runs teams for Bentley.

He worked on exclusive models such as the Bentega SUV. Clay comes in bars or cylinders about the size of a tennis ball. cans, it's more like the Play-Doh we played with when we were kids. Traditional water-based ceramic clay would dry and harden too quickly. This specialty. Clay is stickier and more malleable. The modeling team's first design sketches became multiple clay models reduced to approximately just over a meter in length. Once they decide on the design they want to move forward with 3D scanners, turn it into digital graphics that can be further edited with software that may include virtual reality aspects, the data is then transferred to a milling machine, the modeling team first builds a steel and wood frame to support foam blocks, making a complete model out of solid clay would be too expensive and would weigh at least several tons to make the clay more manageable.

They heat it for 24 hours in a special oven at a temperature of around 140 degrees Fahrenheit. In a couple of days, spreading one to four inches of soft, warm clay on different parts of the model, once it cools to room temperature and hardens, it is ready to be shaped in just one or two days, the router can carve a full-size model, but it's not close to being finished yet, but the modelers

still

have to smooth out the corners and edges of the surfaces. This is where craftsmanship becomes critical. I have met people who come from the porcelain industry and who have migrated very quickly and very easily to the clay modeling side, but I have also met people who no matter how much training you give them, how much guidance they just don't receive, They also carve important details like hoods, roof lines and fenders, all by hand.

I mean, you can probably have at least 60 70 tools. in your box that they do similar things but they do it in a slightly different way their tools may look like medieval surgical instruments they are very, very simple things. I mean, this is a pretty crude tool, it's almost like a cheese grater, so you can scrape. A lot of clay is removed but the surface is kept fairly flat and level, but this strange collection of razor blades and wires has been responsible for some of the most beautiful cars in history. Clay modeling dates back to the 1930s, but the technology has changed dramatically now: computer-driven machines.

It takes hours to do what used to take days or even weeks of manual work, yet the tools used to actually sculpt are mostly the same. This is a very simple tool that we use and you just have to scrape which are what we call slicks. Now these are very thin steels, but what it allows you to do is shape them and then you can use that shape to drag down the surface of the clay. The real advantage of clay is versatility. Modelers can experiment and make a change that may or may not work, but it can be easily fixed if modelers make a mistake, use a heat gun to smooth the area and add more material or remove it to get the best image. complete of what the vehicle will look like. 3D printers produce headlight grills. mirrors and more the hard parts or the three dimensional printed parts that develop with the model so that they become more and more detailed as they go and the materials in those parts will also develop, so to begin with what could be a painted part will end up being a glass piece.

In the end, the team uses 3D scanners to create a digital version of the model that way it can be instantly shared with the company's engineers and designers around the world. Near the end of the process, the clay models are covered. in a glossy film called dinoc that resembles painted sheet metal, it gives modellers an idea of ​​what the real car will look like. The film can help identify errors in the bodywork that need to be corrected, and modellers are no strangers to corrections despite how fast the scanners are. and milling machines have done this process, it can still take years to finish a clay model.

More than a dozen changes can be made to the model before it is given the green light. Car designers can continue to fine-tune body details in just millimeters. Engineers will make changes. to its structure that improve the vehicle's crash test ratings when sculpting these different changes modelers rely on a tool that everyone is familiar with tape the tape we use is a masking tape masking tape to adhere to the clay to that when the designs you want to change something or we want a more defined guide to help us clean the services, we can put this and then we can work a surface while these simple adjustments can be done by hand.

Major changes require the model to be completely re-milled from updated data, the combination of materials and amount of labor is what leads to those six-figure prices. Bentley automakers try to stick to a strict 12-month time frame, but that's not the case for all the designers who spent more than four years crafting this Ford F-150 Raptor model out of nearly 2,000 pounds of clay, no matter the size. company, once the modeling team starts, they race against the clock, the biggest challenge we always have is time and especially if the head of the department leaves. the chief designer leaves the site no, I'm not happy with that, I need to change this, that the wing, the whole body side is trying to balance everyone's wishes and requests and what they really want to see, you know, and fulfill with that deadline.

We have to get it right, so what makes these expensive clay models more useful than virtual ones? Car manufacturers can test a car's aerodynamics. Computer programs help, but they need a real-life model to test this thoroughly. To do this, they use a giant wind tunnel as a huge fan spins. Engineers use a smoke stick to see how easily air will flow under and around the car on the road. It's called resistance and it helps measure how much energy a vehicle needs to move. This informs how much fuel the car will eventually consume. In some extreme cases, companies can spend more than a thousand hours in the tunnel testing a model design before committing to full-scale production, and modellers are ready to make adjustments on the fly, but most importantly, the Models are used to see how a prototype car actually works.

You see things like how natural light plays on your curves, only a real 3D model can show what it will look like when you are on the road trying to create something that will catch someone's attention and almost tug at their heartstrings. and sometimes you just can't do it with digital or virtual reality, you just can't do it, so that hands-on process is necessary, no matter how much more precise and reliable virtual reality design technology, clay modelers like Mark Don. I don't see their practice disappearing anytime soon, you will always need a physical model to verify the data you receive.

I can see the generations coming now that are more accustomed to using different VR software and there will be more confidence in What they see virtually helps the process, it definitely helps speed up the development of these products, but I think ultimately it will always there will be a need for some type of clay model, thanks.