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DIY fiberglass body panels?

34K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  milo 
#1 ·
:D Do any of you guys know anything about making fiberglass body panels at home. I know it's possible, any advice? The parts will be used on a track only race car as well. Thanx!
 
#2 ·
only tips I can give is to have as much mat or cloth to resin as possible, this will be the strongest, You want the mat fully saturated, but not overly resin rich. Get a roller to help elimate air bubbles. Also if you add a real lot of catalyst to the resin it will be more brittle, so use the recommendations of number of drops per ounce on the resin. Fiberglast.com, think thats link, has some information on thier site, or do a google search, there is a lot of information that can be found on making fiberglass parts if you look. I was searching at one time. If you plan to reproduce parts and make a mold, I seen a site where they used plaster to make the mold instead of fiberglass. A cheaper alternative if you only plan on reproducing a few parts.
 
#3 ·
I'd do some research on kit car sites. I know there are a couple of books out there on panel reproduction.

A few years back, it was sort of common for someone to go to a high-dollar rental place and rent a Ferrari or Lambo, and then pull a female mold off the thing before returning it to the rental place. Supposedly, there are techniques to make a mold of the car without damaging the existing surface (if you're careful). Same techniques would probably work for duplicating a single panel.

If what you're doing is a fairly popular vehicle, it might be worth taking the extra time to make a permanent mold. Two advantages to this - you can pull several parts out of it, so if you screw one up, you can just make another and you might be able to make some extra $$ making parts until the mold wears out or breaks. Could potentially sell them on ebay and offset the cost of the initial time and materials.

Good luck.
 
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