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Fiberglass Info

ExplorerDMB

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Year, Model & Trim Level
2004 Acura TL
Me and friend want to fab a fiberglass enclosure for the rear of his honda civic hatchback...and I was wondering if anyone knew how to do it or websites on how to do it? I just need to figure out the how-tos and what exactly I need. Even if you know how to do it, please give me the full info on how to do it and what I need. Thanks
 



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i know how to do it.

its something that there is an awful lot of nuance too etc. you will make a ton of mistakes until you learn the little tricks yourself etc.

essentially the simplest way is to make a shape, stretch fleece over it, and then pour resin on it, follow with real glass to give it strength.

check out teh alpine civic build-up pictures on their site for ideas.
 






just some advise... TEST SMALL STUFF OUT FIRST.

my first fiberglassing project was my box... I made mistakes and it ended up costing me a lot of time and $$$. always put on more resin then you think is necessary... always.
 






But how do you do it? Like step by step. All we probably want to do is make a place to hold the amp, and 2 12's. Thanks
 






go buy a gallon of Fiberglass resin. It will have two little tubes of hardener on top. Pour the resin into the top plastic part (you'll understand once you get a gallon). Put a small squeedge of the tube of hardener in (the two tubes have to last you for a gallon... so think about how much you need to use). Mix it up. It will start to get hard in 10 or so minutes.

Now, you should have your fleece put on the case by now and all ready to go. I'm not whoring out my thread - but look through it, and you can see the construction pics and when the fleece was layed out etc.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102495

Then use a paint brush you dont care about and 'paint' the resin all over the fleece. Fleece absorbs a LOT of resin. Each of the little plastic bowls will be roughly enough resin for an area 3x the size of the bowl. Dont use it sparingly. Leave it be for an hour or so. Then flip whatever you're building over and paint the inside of the fleece with more resin. Wait another hour. Now you have your shell.

Keep the box you're building flipped over. Buy some fiberglass mat. Paint a very thin layer of resin on the backside of the area you just did... Then take the fiberglass mat and dunk it into the resin. Make sure it all gets 'wet'. Then lay the mat all over the back of the structure. Do 2-5 layers of this.

Now just bondo up the front side of it, sand it and paint. You're done. Oh, buy plastic surgeons gloves, and wear crappy clothes... the resin will get EVERYWHERE.

sounds easy, but also very very easy to mess up. I'll testify that I've probably had to put in an extra 10-15 or so hours into my box because of things I messed up on. If you've never done it before, I'm not sure I'd tackle this project by yourself... either ask someone who knows about it, to come over and help or pay someone to do it the first time and learn from them. Just my $.02 though

I'll take some pics this weekend of the process if you want.
 






Yes if you could just give me a picture step by step that would be nice. We are thinking about doing a similar box to what you have in your explorer. Thanks
 












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