Greetings everyone,
I'm working on a project right now, it's a 98' Jeep TJ. I'm doing a full build on this jeep, new axles, motor , suspension & various other things, but the interior is also part of the project. Even though the jeep is being built as an off road toy, I still wanted the interior & rest of the jeep to be as clean as possible.
But I'm not much of an fiberglass expert more of a beginner with limited experience so I need some help from people with experience building custom fiberglass panels for cars. I need some advice and direction with some of my ideas for kick panels.
I need to build some simple rectangle L shaped kick panels to cover all my wires & rear window controls running through out the rear of the jeep. I have a fairly good idea how to make these, since I have been experimenting over the summer. But what I need help with is what I want to do with them. I want to make a mold of the "JEEP" lettering, to incorporate it into the kick panel. I already have the mold, which came from the plastic sway bar cover on the TJ.
So how do I go about making a mold of the lettering. What could I pour into the mold that I will be able to remove once it has hardened?
How would I join this mold to the rest of the kick panel and make it super clean with no visual notice of a joint?
I'd also like to make the kick panel have a piano white finish…
I'm assuming this is accomplished by adding dye to the fiber glass resin then progress my way up to finer and finer grains of sand paper...
Here is a Example of what the kick panel will look like (Not to scale just an idea).
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O JEEP O
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*Black Kick panel with Raised white JEEP lettering & 2 red lights on either side of lettering.
is it a relief or an extruding mold?
Well the side I plan on using is a relief. The under side of the plastic bumper cover has the JEEP lettering pressed into it.
So if I was able to pour something into it, and be able to remove it once it has hardened, I'd have the JEEP lettering. Which then could be attached to the kick panel with fiberglass matt.
I have been thinking about trying, Fiberglass resin, adding some white dye, and going from there. Not sure it this is the way to go or not?
my first thought was plaster, then coat, but i'd think it'd be too brittle with even glass over it for a offroad vehicle. u could do f/g, but you'd want a release, and still layer the mat to make it strong... i'm at a loss. perhaps one of the others has an idea.
assuming the area you are working from is flat there a re a couple ways you could try it..one way i can think of is to use milled glass in the lettering....apply a very generous coat of releasing agent to your bumper or whatever it is with the letters in it, apply a good deal around the letters too...(assuming it is either plastic or metal) then with that done mix up some milled glass into your resin and apply that to the letters, be sure to fill them completely, i hope they arent much deeper then a 1/4" now tap the letters from the backside to remove any air bubbles ...once the milled glassing is in there take some fiberglass chop matt and apply it over the letters...besure to go about 2 to 4 inches outside the actuall letters all the way around..alloow to cure...once cured pry it out and you are good to go...you now have a good couple inches around the letters to mold into your project without having to try and mold indiviual letters to the box your are making.,..
you may want to pick up a spare part from the wreckers that has the similar logo in it so you dont acidently mess yours up..
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Fiberglass Guru.