very nice. is the dash over lay? i would really like to learn how you made the trunk. i will be doing my dash too but if you had any tips for the dash that would be super sweet. also how do you do trunk lids i have a few people that want me to do some stuff like this for them but i told them to wait till i figure it all out. it seems like a female mold of the deck and then a separate mold for the underside braces then adhereing them together? with all my pieces that i make i cant get a super quality finish when cured so i have to sand it down and gel coat. looks great man.
The dash is both an overlay and molded. I made the dash in a mold then adhered it to my stock dash with the vinyl removed. It would be very very difficult to make a complete dash out of cf due to the mounting points and all. What kind of dash are you looking for? I’m working on two different civic dashes right now.
You’re exactly right with the trunk, both pieces are made in a mold and then adhered together. You’re not the only one with finish problems when you pull from the mold. Imperfections can always be worked out with duratec top coat.
just a quick question how much time effort and price would a lid like that cost. i was going to overlay a 84 supra dash. but im going to do mine first.
The materials for the final trunk lid alone I estimate to be in the $200 to $250 dollar range.
3 yards of carbon
3 yards of 6 oz cloth
2 yards of 10 oz cloth
16 oz of clear gel
16 oz of duratec clear additive
16 oz of surfboard resin
4 oz of duratec clear top coat
god knows how much vinyl ester resin
vacuum bagging materials
then you have all the misc expenses like cups, stir sticks, pigments, brushes, sheet metal/rivets, etc.
That is not including the mold which is easily $1000. From start to finish it took about 40 hours over the course of a month to perfect. You also have to be handy with metal fabrication too as I make my own mounting hardware. If you are planning on doing your dash I hope you have either a spare or another car, I started the dash project 6 months ago and it is still a work in progress. Trunks and hoods are simple, when you get into dashes with many curves and negative angles it gets a little time consuming. especially since I work out of a 1.5 car garage I can only take one one project at a time.
Here’s the basic layup schedule for hoods and trunk lids if you’re interested.
Top:
5.7oz carbon graphite
2oz mat
6-8oz cloth
Skeleton:
2oz mat
That’s pretty much how everyone in the industry make them via wet layup of course. I don’t do wet layup so the materials I use are a little bit different.
How many layers of each? I thought using mat before cloth was a big no no. I try to stay away from mat as much as I can, I think it’s cheap and hard to work with.
1 layer of 2x2 twill
1 layer of 2oz mat
1 layer of cloth
So here’s your layup schedule in details:
Ultra clear gelcoat, let cure.
Wet out mold, place the carbon down dry. Work the resin in from underneith. Wet it out again with more resin.
Wet out your mat completely on a big piece of cardboard paper or something. This allows the resin to break down all of the binders in the mat and make it soft. Now place the mat over your carbon, it’ll drape very nicely even in countour surfaces. Work it in with your brush and make sure everything lays down nicely.
Place your cloth over the whole thing dry. Use a rubber squeeze to work out the air bubbles and air traps. The cloth will suck up any excess resin from the carbon and the mat. Work outward from the middle and discard the excess resin as you go along.
Trim near the edges (1-2" excess) and let it kick in.
Trim to the edge with a knife or razor.
It takes me about 20 minutes to lay up a part like this.
And yes, mat is cheap
cfcrafting… 1000 dollors for a mold??? that is super crazy. what did you use to make it with. epoxy? or like rubber. is it 2, 2 piece molds? or one female and then vacuum bag over top? i think that would be easiect since you can kinda see the bubbles.
evan and cfcrafting… for wetlaying a dash and not making a mold. would you sand off the vinyl and then coat with a epoxy gel? sand smooth and then lay a layer of fiberglass, then twill? it seems to me that would work easily.
question about trunks and hoods. how do you get a rolled edge. adhere parts together and then overlay and roll the edges over?
as for mounting hardware. can you laminate metal inside the laminate? or rivet nutplates inside the actual backside before adhereing the top and bottom together? does this make sense.
$1000 is a cheap mold 
Your talking about a very high quality part that is used to produce many pieces. You gotta figure the better your mold the higher quality parts you produce. Yes you have to foot the bill in the beginning but the mold pays for itself over time anyways.
For overlaying a dash I would take off the vinyl. You could lay on top of the vinyl but you’d be making your dash bigger with the cf and resin therefore causing other parts not to fit right. With removing it, you are replacing the thickness of the vinyl with the cf thus making it the same size. Easier said than done but it’s a good theory You can cut it with a razor blade and peel it off very easily. be carefull not to rip the foam underneath or you’ll have to fill the spot it left. I did one dash overlay and I’ll never do it again. If I ever tried to finish it without throwing it away I’d still be sanding. Overlaying a complicated part is such a pain in the a$$. I bet you could get good at it if you practiced. All my parts are made to be reproduced hence the reason I went in the mold direction.
Rolled edges is hard to explain. This takes alot of creativity and practice. I remember asking the same question once but it went unanswered. For starters I use two peice molds, there might be an easier way but this is how I learned to do it. The frame is smaller than the trunk or hood surface so adhering the parts comes last and doesn’t effect the rolled edges.
Yes you can place metal in between your cloth. I take a flat piece of sheet metal and weld two nuts onto it, rivet it to the frame then put a couple layers of cloth over it.
Thanks Evan, I’ll give that a try this weekend although I think I’ll stick to vacuum bagging instead of wet layup. What do you think of 2 layers of cf with honeycomb in between?
I agree, $1000 is not an expensive mold. There’s more to it than just the materials. A cheap mold could break down after a few parts and a cheaply designed mold could make it harder to produce the parts.
carbon>honey comb>carbon is great if you can afford it. Make sure you know how to cut the honey comb especially around the edges and around corners. Normally honey comb also comes with a layer of adhesive so it’ll be: carbon>adhesive>honey comb>adhesive>carbon
$ouch$. I just stepped back into reality and won’t be using honeycomb anywhere in the near future. :shock:
I’m a bit confused avtcomposites has this listed as “Sizes larger than 2’ x 4’ must be shipped via truck freight.” How heavy is this stuff?
It’s very light. However the size of it is over UPS/FEDEX limit so they’d have to ship it via ground freight. lol I thought you knew how much it costs.
weird, I thought they could roll it. I saw it on fiberglast a long time ago and didn’t remember it being so expensive. Although I vow never to buy fiberglast products again they do have a better price. Still too little margin of error at that price though. Maybe one day I’ll try a yard for kicks.
we use phenalic honeycomb. super strong when laminated on or when metal is bonded to it. aircraft parts.
as for the hoods and such… so you lay a gel coat first and let cure??? then lay cloth??? do you scuff the gel before you use epoxy? does it stick well to vertical surfaces. i would hate for the gel to puddle down and have be thicker in certain spots. im curious too how do you release the part from the mold without marring the surface a bit with a rubber spaltula thingy. my parts will stick in some areas but for a big surface it seems like it would grab a bit. i have been using SE Johnson wax as a mold release. it works pretty good.
i have a part i would like to mass produce using vacuum but my bagging material will pull straight out and not suck down right without ripping at edges. are there any stretchy film that will kind or wrap around a bit better? any other ideas. i thought of making two molds that fit together like lego blocks but it seems very hard to do getting the gaps correct throughout the part. is there another way? i would then place the box mold under vacuum. do you think this would work a bit better? its a engine cover that has no negative slopes and is plastic injection molded in the first place. enlighten me.
nother question.
for cf and evan.
any chance you guys could take some pics of your molds and describe the process. i have seen a few website ones but nothing that really got me to understand it very well. i am new to making stuff but experience in repairing adv composites. its funny how different the two are. make a hood? prolly not. fix a hole most deffinately could.
It would be better to show you. I’m busy the next two weekends but you could come by after that.
Yes you may let the gelcoat cure (don’t wait more than 6 hrs.) before you start layup but I prefer to leave it somewhat tacky. Depending on the thickness of your gelcoat it won’t puddle, if it does it’s too thin. Also takes some practice to spray it evenly especially with a cup gun.
Releasing parts…You wouldn’t believe the number of molds I’ve ruined trying to release a part. You always have to think about this when you design your mold. If you think it may be hard to release go with a multi part mold. Also fabricate places to pull and make your flanges wider than the part to be made. Most people like to cut the fabric in the green stage but I just leave the extra to pull on. I also extend my plugs about two inches on all sides so if need be I can pull the part with some pliers then cut off the excess. For example, say you are making an open ended box 2 in deep. Make your plug 4 inches deep and mold. When you pull the final part cut two inches off. If you think you’re having release problems now you should try releasing a boat. I’ve seen flanges made big enough to stand on and winches used to pull.
that would be great to hang out and watch the process. i could help you out as much as i can. let me know a good weekend and we can work something out.
I’ll see if there’s anything laying around to take pictures of. I can’t show most of it since, well… legal reasons.