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molds

every once in awhile I see some on ebay. There was a guy in Scotland that had some he wanted to get rid of.
 
Cudda, Shudda, Wish this Wudda been placed in the "Body" section........ however, as it appears here and so it shall it be for now.

I tried to find the disc/DVD and could not, about building molds using a variety if types of silicones, epoxies, esters, etc. and when I do find it. I'll list it FYI.

Last week I bought a f-glass 27 roadster body for my project. Like I now have ZFGS..... that's, Zero F.... Garage Space, but I will be pulling molds off this body to produce panels to allow me to lenghen and widen this body.

While I'm only interested in producing sections of this body, the concept and approach in doing so is the same for the whole body - understanding of course, the need to "split" mold sections in accordance to interference of compound curves which would inhibit proper release.

So........ let's look at someone selling body molds and analyze the marketing thrust regardless if it's for a T-Bucket, '27 Roadster, 32 Coupe or 41 Willis.... in exponential order, as it were.

If I had (I don't) a T-bucket body and decided to create a mold from it, I probably could do so. But what would I have? It would be just another T-Bucket body. My claim to fame would be my location, my crating charge and the cost of freight to you. That isn't worth much.

I would need a hook. A lower body. a longer body, a taller body. a shorter body, a smoother body, a lighter body, a stronger body- something to entice the buyer to consider my body over the next guys' and here is where advertsiing and market saturation enter.

I can build a mold for you. Your cost for that mold will be not only my cost to produce the mold for you times a hety margin plus a qualty of mold in terms of the numnber of bodies you can produce from it. Molds and plugs have a service life just like aluminum rockers and rods.

If I build a quality mold good for fifty bodies, I'm going to charge you something on a per body basis to amortized my mold building expertise and (important here) foregone income were I to offer bodies of my own. That makes the mold rather spendy by comparison to just buying a body from one of our respected sponors. Look'em up and buy from them.


Move forward and build the car.

Let me know if you wish to proceed.
 
Anyone know where to get body molds?


Here's a link to 'Phil-osophy Phils auto related Blog' article on "How to make a fiberglass spoiler mold". I don't have any experience with this yet but it does seem to be a pretty complete article on making a mold. This should give you an idea as to what's involved in the process.

http://nr11.biz/blogfest/?p=25

I'm interested in giving it a shot but don't think I'd want to tackle a body. Try googling it. A while back I found a web site where they showed the whole process of creating body molds for (I believe) a three window coupe. Had a lot of information and pictures and I believe they were making the mold to produce bodies to sell but I don't recall the name of the company. (Give me a break, it was a coupe, not a T).
 
My only venture into mold making was a '40 Ford dash for a T bucket. By the time I finished the plug it looked to good to set aside so I just used it.

I applaude anyone who would take on a project of this magnitude but I also wonder why. Is it just to say ''I built that'' or is there some other reason. Perhaps I too much of a traditionalist. I personally like the purportions Henry and his crew designed in to ''The tin Lizzie".

Ron
 
I built the whole left side of mine by making sweeps from the right side and molding up the new left side. The body I bought was BAD!
 
I built the whole left side of mine by making sweeps from the right side and molding up the new left side. The body I bought was BAD!

Butch, I commend you for taking on such a project.

Can you enlighten us as to some of the trials and tribulations of doing this? Pictures are sooo great - if you have them and care to share.

I'd (we'd) also like to know the brand of the body you bought that was so bad...... a PM might be more discreet and I'll not reveal the contents, except maybe to Franky and Maddy - my two Border Collie-Aussie mixes
 

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