Urgent Help with Fiberglass

[hansgoudzwaard]

Looks good Rudy.

[rudog]

Thanx Hans. I'm kinda surprising myself.

[hansgoudzwaard]

Has a string , built F/G saddlebags for his ride. Post #50 onward deals with lids and openings. This may be of interest to you.

http://www.chopperweb.info/forum/showth ... genumber=4

[rudog]

Well, it's the end of the prep work and I start laying fiber tomorrow. Tonight I will cut the hatch and prep the lip for weather stripping. Then coat with latex to seal the foam from the resin. The drywall mud has been the trick. 15 min of sanding, wipe a new layer, wait 2 hrs, and try again. I think I finally got the transition right. It's an increasing radius from front and back to the top.

End of 1st phase

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I so appreciate the help I got today. The running around for parts was the biggest help. But, this project could not have been possible without this beutifull guy to rework the old frame. We narrowed it 4" and replaced the axle tube with a cleaner new pc of steel tube. This guy has his own weld/fab shop, so I had no problems giving him the run of my shop.

Holy Snikey BatMan, Is that Propane???

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I'll take a few minutes to work on another project and get back to the foam core. Maybe another pot of coffee. Next pics should be fiber and weather strip seal. The tough part will be imagining the thickness of fiber so the seal seats properly and keeps the shape. That link had some good info, Hans. I'll be doing it a little diff. and I'll show you rather than try to explain it.

[rudog]

Massive failure of the mold. The resin made it's way past the seal and ate the foam. It happened quick so only a small section got destroyed.
I'll rebuld the damaged areas with cardboard and grind it away after it's done. I'll cover with alum. foil and that should work fine.

I'm not going to get this done in time. The pressure is off.

[rudog]

Well its been a busy week. Took a 450mi round trip, got to meet a few hundred new people, and delivered some product. Now back to glass. I covered the foam lid with foil and sprayed with Pam for a release agent. It is working well. I have problems getting the glass to turn sharp corners so I covered the lip with foil to hold it in place until it set.

The best place to get resin O'Reillies @ $40/gal with an account. So I should have enough money to finish the project. I'm only getting about 0.050" thickness with 23oz glass. It may take more layers than I thought or I could just go thinner. I think I'll do both. The plan was 3 layers @3/8". Now it's 5 for 1/4".

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[rudog]

I've been kinda busy lately...as always. I just finished my 1st week at a new job. I'm working R&M at an aluminum foundry. How kool is that? They do production castings for mil and auto industry. Some of these castings are huge. All but a few are poured into permanant steel molds. No green sand at all. Only the epoxied white sand.

To celebrate I laid the 3rd layer onto the form. I used screws and blocks to hold the form for my lip. I wish I had done this from the start. I have been using an air file with 36grit to take down the high spots between layers. I discovered that using a paint brush to stiple the air pockets out works best for me. That stranded cloth is nasty to work with.

I'll finish the lip with tiger hair before laying a final layer of cloth on the exterior. Thanx for the suggestion. I also plan to lay a 5th layer from the inside to strenthen the lip particulary. I'm wanting the lid off the form to see what it looks like. I'll start on the box and finish the 2 parts to each other.