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Thread: Working with Fibreglass. Making a Hatch

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    Evil 86. Here are some pics of a fender mold with a fender in it. The guard in the mold is a Good Line fender I had lying around just to show how it all fits together



    This mold has 4 parts including the main mold





    Top



    Door return



    Wheel arch return

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    Mold for bezel mold popped and trimmed today. As you can see, no damage to original. Thats good news



    Mold finished Item popped from mold and trimmed No damage to original

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    Joining the Hatch Halves

    I normally use glass rovings to join the halves


    A roll of glass rovings or a cheese Close up of a roving
    Last edited by jimmy19650; 17th April 2011 at 11:44 PM.

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    First problem I encountered as soon as I took the pics of the rovings is that it was slightly wet. As I have no dry rovings around, I will use another method, very similar to the rovings, but just as effective. I will cut thin strips of 600 gsm glass and use that.


    Thin strips of glass sitting on join ready to be wet out



    Wetting the joining strips with resin
    In this picture I have laid the strips on the joining parts of the inner skin which is still in the mold in a effort to keep it flat




    Once all the joining strips are wet out along the joins, you need to brush resin on the corresponding outer skin so the halves join well. Bring the 2 halves together and clamp together while the resin cures. You need to work very quickly because if the resin cures, the whole hatch is trash. In this pic you can see I have used masking tape to hold the two halves together



    And a heap of clamps



    If you look closely, you can see some of the glass squeezed out. Thats a good sign because it means both surfaces have come together. If there are any sections that havent joined, you can inject resin and small amounts of glass with a syringe.
    If you still are worried about the join, you can pour 2 part polyurethan expanding foam between the halves. Be carefull, because I have seen molds get blown apart as the foam expands. You can use any of the many silastic joining adhesives and body glues just as easily, I just prefer
    resin and glass.

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    Hatch joined ok, clamps removed. Just need to release inner skin from mold.


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    While the hatch is curing, I continued on this






    Wing mold I started last year. Already has 2 thin layers, will put on 2 more tonight






    I have put I layer of 225 and a layer of 600 chopped strand glass. I like to make my molds at least 2000gms/sqm

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    Pour 1000 grams unwaxed polyester resin in old ice cream container (mix another 1000 grams for second layer)




    Add 1.5% catalyst. Dont try to be clever and add more than 2%. Too much and resin will gel too quick and not cure properly and cause problems with distortion and shrinkage. Too little, under 1%, will cause incomplete cure. An incomplete cure can actually be fixed with the use of an oven or heat.



    Mix thoroughly.



    Dont start without a brush and a roller



    Wet out surface to be laminated with a generous coat of catalysed resin



    After a few minutes, the resin will change colour. that lets you know you have remebered to add catalyst. Many times I have forgotten to add the catalyst, not good, have to peel it off and start again



    Lay first layer of glass on and brush resin on reasonably thick. The resin actually dissolves the binder or glue that holds the glass fibres together, and it eventually goes clear. As I am going to put 2 layers of glass on, I will brush on a reasonably thick layer of resin that
    will be absorbed by the second layer.



    All wet out. You can see the binder has been dissolved and you can see the tooling gelcoat through the preceeding 2 layers of glass



    The most important part of the layup is to roll all the air bubbles from the laminate. You can actually hear the air bubbles pop as you roll. Keep rolling until you cant hear air bubbles pop. Most people neglect this step and result in a laminate that
    is full of air bubbles which causes delamination under load.



    You can see the difference 3 minutes makes with the roller. Dont skip this step.



    First layer all rolled



    Second layer all applied and rolled. This took me exactly 60 minutes, including the pics, used up 2 litres of resin, 1.2 sqm of glass and 4 pairs of gloves

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    I had this much resin left over. If you look closely, it has just started to gel. You need to make sure that whatever resin you mix can be applied and rolled in 20-30mins max. Thats why I mixed 2 separate batches of 1000 grams



    In an earlier post I mentioned tripe. This is what it looks like. It is caused simply by putting gelcoat on too thin or having a gelcoat that has not cured properly. On rarer occasions, it is caused by the resin in the reinforcing layers not curing quick enough.

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    Looks good man. After these lil Projects are done ull hav to make e7 stuff. I'll take a flat front end and a spirit wing hahaha.

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    If you have some good quality originals I can take a mold off, Ill have a look.

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