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Thread: Working with Fibreglass. Making a Hatch

  1. #51
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    Hatch complete. Only need to sand a bit around edges and cut out holes on inner skin



    After weighing hatch as is, it is about 1kg lighter than a steel hatch. bearing in mind that a steel hatch only weighs about 7kg. Once I remove the holes on the inner skin, it will end up about 1.5kg lighter.
    Interestingly, this hatch is considerable stiffer than the corresponding steel hatch. I made the inner skin considerably thicker than needed. I believe that with a thinner inner skin, a functional hatch
    could easily get down to 4.5kg, or less. By functional I mean able to use the hinges, locks etc. Yes 2-2.5kg would be possible, but quite a complex sandwich layup would need to be used.




    And yes it does fit and line up as Mr Hachi intended.

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    Thanks for this thread, mate. Top stuff!

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    Wing mold complete.



    Seperating or popping the mold. Here you can see wooden wedges used to separate item from mold. Under no circumstances use metal implements to separate items from a mold. the marks that are left are very difficult to repair. use wooden or plastic wedges.






    Close up of the wooden wedges. After more than 30 years of fibreglassing, i still get a kick out of popping a mold!!!!




    The finished mold. The shine on the mold surface is straight off the product. Although shiny now, I will still have to spend probably another 2 hours sanding and polishing to a mirror surface.




    Another view of the mold, with the wing in the back ground.

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    The new wing sitting on my new fibreglass hatch. Not a bad fit here. This is what i started doing before I started this thread. Hopefully, this hatch will work better.



    Much better fit here





    I will be joining the wing to the hatch, but dont want this variance in thickness, so...........................





    I will be cutting the wing back to the dotted line so the finished product will look like it is meant to be there with no thickness variation.
    Once I get this fit right, I will take another mold and hopefully have a one piece outer skin with wing incorporated.
    If you go back to earlier in the post, you can probably see why I gave up on my last attempt with the dodgy wing I started with.
    Last edited by jimmy19650; 17th April 2011 at 11:50 PM.

  5. #55
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    Hatch on the car, window in place but not secured. Checking for alignment.




    This is the 3rd complete hatch I have made. had to slightly tweak the mold to make sure all was a good fit



    Side alignment pretty good, Im happy with this.




    This side is good also. happy here also




    Top edge looks good




    This is the part I am not happy with. the top of the hatch is about 1mm higher than the roof in the centre, over a distance of about 100mm. Can probably pull this down with the glass securely in place.
    Will probably tweak the mold slightly to take this bow out. realistically, you can barely see this, but i might as well get this right at mold stage before I go any further.

    I have fitted hinges, struts and locks. Absolutely no flex and the window is not secured properly, (window will stiffen hatch considerably). Next hatch will have a lighter inner skin, and should be able to get down to about 4.5 kg
    and still perfectly useable.

  6. #56
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    Wing attached and aligned as I want it. Joins filled. Just need to spend some time sanding and filling before I take a mold off this.



    Wing on hatch. You can see the join and fill. I had to sand heaps off the sides so the finished product is a constant width, otherwise the mold will have a step and wont join well with the inner skin





    Close up of the side. This part is the most important, followed by the rear edge.



    The rear is important, but any mis-match here wont be as obvious as the sides. I still spent some time grinding so the overall width is the same as the standard hatch.



    There is always one part that will give you grief. This is the part that will need a bit of work wth the filler to make it look factory.

  7. #57
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    Looking good bud

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    After many many hours of sanding and filling, I finally have the hatch primed


    I tried to get the wing to blend into the original contours, instead of looking like an add on.


    More sanding needed, but you can see it all blends in. Factory??


    Got rid of the hole for the lock. Will have to use the internal lever to open hatch. Saves weight too.

    Once I have this all sanded and painted, the mold will be next.

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    looks boss man, i like how u made all the contours line up, looks just like a brought one haha

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    Thanks mate. As you can see through out this post, quite a bit of work goes into making a decent mold, hence the high cost of genuine, as opposed to, copied parts.

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