Takhion Fork Crown Recreation: Rough Model Done!

So one of the reasons that I haven't been posting too much is that I was trying to finish this crazy thing, which every time I thought would go a lot faster reminded me that "hey, you're not a modeler" and then I'd start over.

So after more than a month of pushing around verts and sliding edges to get the perfect measurements, I have this to show for it:

Complete with clamps and everything!

This was modeled after a few Takhion forks and a spare fork crown I had lying around.  It's modeled to scale, and also currently modeled to accept 26mm Takhion handlebars.  

The main reason that I decided to do this is because I was curious about investment casting, and how cool it would be if I could design my own crowns and lugs and such and get them cast for framebuilding.  So, this will be my test.

A rather exciting side view. 

A sample crown model and a sample clamp model have both been sent to Shapeways for a test print.  Once these have proven to work the way I want them to, I plan to cast the crown base and possibly print the clamps in some nifty metal.  

There are a lot of factors that need to be tested with this crown - like, hey, will the fork blades fit?  Could it be drilled for brakes?  And so on.  I imagine this will be the first of many, many iterations to get everything just so.  The nice thing about working in 3D is that it's easy to measure things down to the tenth of a millimeter, and things can automatically stay symmetrical as you're working on them.  

Nope.  No brake holes.

I'm excited to see if this works, and what sort of possibilities it opens up if it does.  There are already builders out there successfully working with 3D printed lugs, and if they can do it, why not me?