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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 08:19 AM
DIY fiberglass front end?
As per normal here are some ridiculous questions of which i know little or nothing about. Hopefully someone can shed some light on it for me.
I saw there is a company in NSW who does the fibreglass one piece front ends (only early designs however) for about $500 but they are not happy to
ship them to SA and when i started getting them talking about shipping
they pretty much said any damage is on you.
Now what i was wondering is i have a "parts" beetle that has a straight front end etc, now could i layer the fibreglass right onto the front of the
beetle to make my own one piece front end that i know will fit my 68 beetle.
So what do people think? would layering on top of a current shell be ok? (i do realise it would end up being slightly bigger than a stock front end
due to building off the car)
Also am i looking at some stupid amount of $'s to do this myself and should i just take it to a fiberglass place and get them to do it?
Any help and or suggestions would be great.
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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 08:39 AM
I remember a website were some guys made a one piece glass front end from scratch... will see if I can dig it up again.
The basic process though is that you'd create the mould on the parts car.... build it really strong, plenty of reinforcing etc. but don't be
concerned with the "outside" surface... it's the fit/finish against the metalwork of the car that you care about the most. Then once the mould is
nicely cured (and cleaned) you give it a good coating of mould release, then gelcoat (white or grey usually) then lay up the glass, tape, mat etc. on
the inside (smooth) surface of to create the front end. Should also include in the lay up the mounting hardware like hinges and so-on.... much cleaner
and strong than trying to attach them later on.
So yeah - that's the basic process as I understand it.... I've done this sort of thing for little parts for model tanks and so-on, and altho it's a
bit of mucking around the results are usually pretty good.
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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 09:12 AM
I've done some of this mold making and fiberglassing on Manxes and created some parts. As mentioned above you need to make the mold off the car and
then make the parts from it. It will cost you plenty to make a good mold because the car has to be basically perfect - straight as a die and no
surface imperfections. You then need to wax it a fair bit and add release agent to ensure that the tooling gelcoat releases from the car. You'll need
to do plenty of layers e.g. 5 or 6 with some reinforcing to get that mold stiff and strong - the front of a bug is quite a large area.
I made some molds for left and right side pods which in total area would be similar to a bug front end. It cost me well over $1,000 to make the molds
myself and a week of my time every night after work plus an entire weekend. Then every one you pop out of the mold after that costs you $300 or so
plus your time.
My advice would be to not try and recreate the wheel. These guys have already done the hard and expensive work for you and create a product that is
presumably a decent standard. Spend a bit of time and money making sure that the product is crated and transported properly and you should have no
problems. And if the part is damaged in transit - hey what's it gonna be - a chip or a scratch, even a crack? That's far easier to repair for $50
than to spend time and money on making your own stuff.
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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Good advice above. I have made some custom one piece front end moulds, 2 in fact. There's a grand in materials for a mould that will last and hold
its shape, then the equipment needed, and it's a hell of a lot of work. There are a few moulds of vw fronts about, just models, and probably quality
differ. Some are early, some late, and then either may have different headlight arrangements etc etc. I've had some that wouldn't even fit a car
without a heap of mods/repairs, so be careful what you buy.
That said, if the donar car has 'perfect' paint and is straight, and you have a friend with glassing tools/equipment, then it's relatively simple
to wax the car so the mould releases, plasticene all the bonnet, guards and h/light gaps, and pull a mould. then 10 coats of wax again, this time on
the new mould and wallah....a one pce is born
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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 10:56 PM
yeah the real thing is im wanting the later front end like the 68 lights etc vents in the top of the bonnet etc. Just to geep the feel of what it is.
rather then going these earlier one piece front ends. Anyone know where i could get one? *nudges matberry*
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posted on May 6th, 2010 at 11:05 PM
mmmmm.........subtle.
I do have a US '67 style in my shed, upright headlights and early bonnet.
Problem is, I was going to pull a mould from it, but it needs work before this can be done....
How badly do you want one ???
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and when i started getting them talking about shipping
they pretty much said any damage is on you.
