High-end auto shop uses reverse engineering technology to create custom parts

Image provided by 3D Systems Inc.

Situation

Kindig-It Design in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a high-end, custom automotive shop with a team of artists and fabricators who specialize in restomod. Since 1999 the shop has been restoring a variety of vehicles and modifying them to be functional and modern, with clean lines and tight-fitting forms, to an almost race-car level of sophistication.

Known for its TV show on the Discovery Channel’s Motor Trends network—which airs worldwide and gives a behind-the-scenes look at Kindig-It’s processes—the shop’s current lead time is three to four years.

Owner Dave Kindig has been designing cars by hand since he was a kid. “If they want to go over the top, I’m definitely their guy,” he said.

“Dave is a perfectionist,” said Greg Hebard, a metal fabricator at Kindig-It. “All the tolerances for the door gaps, the trim, everything has to be really perfect.”

When Kindig first started playing with hot rods in the 1990s, he had to stick to straight lines and build with existing materials. But cars have a lot of complex surfaces, and the body lines all have slight curves with very few flat areas or straight edges, so it’s difficult to measure the side of a car. And designing something in CAD that works with the existing lines of a car often is challenging. This made it impossible for Kindig to achieve the design elements that he creates today. So what’s changed?

Resolution

Kindig-It is using reverse engineering to make parts that fit to existing body panels that would be hard to mock up, including pieces that have to fit on a surface (like emblems and trim pieces), as well as pieces that need to avoid surfaces or have space constraints (like an intake pipe or other engine component that needs to avoid a radiator fan, alternator, or other part; float; and be mounted a certain way). With this technology, the shop creates designs that work with pre-existing curves to make parts that complement the vehicles—and that fit. The designers can make better parts because they can design and build intricate, freeform shapes that have varying wall thicknesses or different kinds of radii.

“The guys back there take my hand-rendering and use Geomagic Design X [software from 3D Systems] to take all of the information that we’ve gathered off of the FARO ScanArm and put it into the computer, which is a game-changer,” said Kindig. Now they can go from design concept all the way through CAD and 3D printing to create perfect parts.

Since acquiring the software and the ScanArm—a remote axis portable visualization and rendering system—the shop has used reverse engineering for all kinds of projects, from headlights, taillights, and engine intakes to trim pieces, scoops, and window openings, most of which are 3D-printed.

“We’ve always built cool stuff. But now, with the added technology, we’re building even cooler stuff—in a lot less time,” Kindig remarked.

Pushing boundaries, doing the most with the available time, and making nicer cars are the shop’s ultimate goals. “We want to exude our art on these cars,” said engineer Will Lockwood. “Geomagic Design X and the FARO ScanArm scanning capabilities have just exponentially increased that for us.”

“I like designing things, and I like working with metal. And this is the best platform to do that. We have more artistic freedom to work our craft and really go all out on projects,” Hebard remarked. “Being able to design in the computer, I can make something that looks a lot nicer and has flowing lines that you couldn’t accomplish with traditional manufacturing, cutting a piece of aluminum tubing. And it takes less time.”

“The coolest thing for me that’s changed my whole life entirely is not having to stick to a two-dimensional world, which means now we can actually dream in 3D and I can basically live in 3D Land, and it’s amazing,” Lockwood added. “You know it’s going to fit. It just pays off dividends.”

Designing and fabricating a part for a finished car by hand that fits and doesn’t scratch the paint is not only a time-consuming chore of trial and error, it’s also stressful. Because the fit and finish on the cars need to be perfect, using reverse engineering to design trim pieces takes the guesswork out and allows Hebard and Lockwood to create parts that fit perfectly to a painted surface on the first try without too much effort.

In the past they dealt with under-hood components that didn’t fit because, once the hood is shut, you can’t see what the clearances are. Now they can scan the engine bay and hood with the rendering system, assemble them together and close the hood virtually in the software, and then see what space constraints they actually have to deal with to make sure that there’s clearance under the hood.

Using this technology, the shop has saved days, weeks, and sometimes months of work; improved delivery time; and reduced labor costs by taking the guesswork out and eliminating trial and error. “It would take maybe two weeks to hand-make a piece of trim. But if I can scan it and get it in the computer, it might take me a day and a half,” Hebard said.

“There is nothing that we can’t build at this point,” Kindig concluded. “If we can dream it, we can build it. Quite literally, within a couple of hours, I have it ready to go.”