A Bit More Progress

I may look into that stuff. Amazon has it for $97 a gallon. Using that you can do two or three layers to get to ass thick as you want it then kick it off. No need to sand before you do the next coat. Wonder if it would kick if you can’t get sun to it like around a corner. Will a UV light work?

 

I'm working on the inner parts of my doors. The flange that I needed under the top rails has held me up on how to tackle them. It's such a complex shape. I don't have any photos, but I made mold plugs that fitted the outside contours of the rails. Then the final parts will attach to the underside. The way I've seen window tinting guys shape the tint for a rear window on the outside and then transfer it to the inside.





I use another glassing method of just attaching pre-made flat pieces. It's often way quicker than making molds. The important thing is to fasten them down well and be able to access the inside of the joints for reinforcement.



So this section covering the door latches is built up from stacked flat sheets. I like to keep some 1/8" through 3/8" on hand. And I always save flat leftover pieces. I seem to find a use for them somewhere.





I had good results using magnets to hold my removable section between my seats. So the whole perimeter of these inner door flanges will hold 15mm x 4mm N52 magnets.

For the backing discs, I bought a 12"x12" sheet of 1/8" FRP from McMaster-Carr.





They'll be epoxied onto the flange's back side around the whole perimeter.





Then the actual inner door panel will have embedded steel washers at those spots.

 

I'm thinking you should write an article with many of your tips for attaching
things in fiber glass or making shapes in fiber glass.

Fiber Glassing Tips

 

I dug up some photos to better explain this process. Here's a shot of the front end of the plug. That center hole let me mount a pipe through there to rotate the whole thing. It was a bit heavy by this point.



Then sections of the mold.



And the mold mounted on a rotating pivot that made the lay up much easier.

 

Chopp, the plug is what you use to make the mold? Is the plug covered in gel coat and waxed?

 

Very much like gel coat but way more workable.

It's FeatherFill G2. It's simply "sprayable bondo". There's lots of high build primer brands. I just like this one. It comes in Grey, Black or Buff colors.



It's polyester based and uses the same MEKP catalyst as fiberglass resins. It's sandable after a few hours and leaves a hard candy shell that you can polish up with fine grits and wax.

 

Thanks Chopp. Keep posting pics.

 

Here's some freshly sprayed.



Then for my molds I usually use a tooling gel coat after spraying on 10 or so light coats of PVA.



And for the final layup I sometimes use a gel coat. But more often I go back to FeatherFill. I actually prefer it over a gel coat because there's always more bodywork to do.

 

What I like about that color is, there ain't no doubt about what color it is. My 33 3w was that color.

 

Here's some continued pics of where I'm using premade flat pieces. Capping off these areas and trying to lay in layer after layer of wet messy glass would be a nightmare. So I use thick pieces 1/4" to 3/8" that can be shaped, dry fitted and pinned in place so that when they're gooped up with epoxy they end up where they should be.





These were filled solid with some chopped glass. Those white circles are the ends of some 3/8" fiberglass dowels for added strength.



Everything is left sharp for now. Inside and outside radiuses will come later.

 

These pieces were a two-fer. The parts for the jambs and the beginning of the flanges around the back rails.

 

where did you get your striker for your latch? I would like something a little more appealing than a dang bolt head!

 

I made those because I hated the bolts too. Back on page 33.

 

A polished stainless button-head isn’t that ugly!

 

I like that idea. Some stainless tubes and 7/16" button head bolts.

 

I forgot to mention that whichever adhesive I use to glue these flat pieces in...



I always carve out a groove on both mating surfaces to hold more adhesive.


Because this


Is better than this.

 

The next step on these doors is to true up where they meet the body. They protrude a 1/16" to 3/32" at the bottoms and up the rear areas.

The biggest headache in working around door gaps is keeping body filler out of the gaps. In my case I attached some 1/8" sticky backed foam to the doors since they're the high points.





Then trimmed off the excess.



And masked over the foam and doors.





Now I can concentrate on building up the body without having to worry about body filler constantly getting into the gaps.

 

Coming along nicely, Chop. This build is one for the ages. I wonder how long it will be after it hits the road that you'll get a request for a magazine article on your car . . . ?

 

Doors are a pita to get right. Nice work.