Thread: Fiberglassing Tips?

fiberglassing ... step by step

http://web.njit.edu/~cas1383/glassing2/

~mike

Nice find. I bought a replacement center console on ebay months ago, and it should be finally showing up soon, so I'll have to do it in a more proper manner this time. I really knew about all of those steps last time, but I was an impatient bastard and now have paid the price for it .

hiya guys
im in the process of building a complete fiberglass console for my car to fit my lcd and stuff

ive been taking photos during the process and if anyone is interested i can do a lil description about each one and post em up

I'm a member at the www.fiberglast.com forums...and there are a few people that really know their stuff. Theres also an archive of very good threads.

-F

fiberglass custom console

thats what im building
its ready to cover with carpet now but ive had to rebuild the head on my engine so its been put on hold till i have some spare cash


cheers
pcman

Here is my dash woes. I don't know the best way to go about this:

My plan is to build a small part that will bolt into the factory dash's area for the radio and climate controls. It's quite a bit wider than double din and a little higher too. There is a factory bracket that I can remove and use as a base to build up from. I want to match the stock dash's contour and edges.

I am going to mount a 7" Xenarc in the middle, a slimline slot-load drive above that, and a row of buttons (robbed from a broken OEM part) below or beside.

My plan is to remove the plastic bezels from teh xenarc, optical drive, and button panel face and hot-glue them into position in the frame. Next, I have to fill in the gaps. What is the best way to go about this? Some of the gaps will be 3" wide or more and there are all kinds of sharp angles (some 90 degrees) that I'll have to create to match the OEM pieces. Should I attempt to put some fiberglass backing in with no form and then use some kind of filler to build it all up? I want it to be very strong and rigid when completed but still match the matte black plastic.

use cardboard covered in fiberglass

Anyone ever heard of a release agent? We've used it with molds when injecting resin. It basically provides the resing something to stick too, that wont stick to yor mold. For some types of resin, in a pinch you can use Pam cooking spray.

I'm accustomed to working with composites(aircraft work) which is basically fiberglass over some type of core, for homebuilt project it's often just foam. shape the foam, apply resin w/ a thickening agent(flox) to the foam, then apply the coth,and another coat of resin.

I've made several consoles, anda couple of complete dashboards this way. Using the foam you can get any shap you want.


If anybody has any questions I can help with, let me know.