bed cover

Just ignore customcarchris. He may present a valid point, but we think that it is great that you want to take this project head on. It will allow you to get creative with it. And it isn't that difficult really.  we agree with younguru that you should make a frame out of 1" square tubing, but use lathe instead of sheet metal for the skin. That will make it a lot lighter but still give enough strength and surface area for the FG to hang on to. (as well as give the ability to mold an interesting shape into it.)

Post some pictures up while you work on it. We can't wait to see it. TIP on the lathe: until you have it glassed in, it most likely will flex around a little bit. We recommend that you tack in extra supports on hte tonneau as you glass the top half of it and then slice out the un-needed supports when you glass the underside of it.

Yes, ignore valid points, but please proceed with doing things the hard and long way just because you can.

If shortbed454 wants to make a frame and use that as a base, then the project will be greatly simplified, but the initial question was making it out of pure fiberglass, which would require a mold.

As for the vacuum, if you can make something like this, not really hard actually, you would be amazed at the difference in smoothness and straightness you get.

Sorry I don't just tell you to go ahead and do whatever, that's a great idea, spend half your life and money on it, I would rather warn against problems that I have myself done so that you can save a lot of time and money otherwise wasted on methods that don't work that great.

But it is the experimentations on the unknowns that make this industry / hobby so great. I believe it was Edison who said:

"I did not invent the lightbulb, I just found 200 ways how NOT to make a light bulb"

What one person may have done, the other may do differently even if the basic instructions may be similar.

We say "Never doubt the unknown because it is the unknown that makes us want to know."

Ok, Confusious, you go ahead and NOT make nice fiberglass pieces and spend the next decade doing it.

I am just trying to save shortbed454 a lot of unnecessary work and headache.  I experimented a lot with my first few projects trying to do things my own way and make them still work.  Then I decided I was tired of wasting my time and money and took some advice to simplify some things, and try a tested method.  Well what do you know they came out better than I could have hoped with my own methods and I still got just as much experience and creativity out of them.  When I was done, I wished someone could have told me how to make things easier and cheaper without me wasting so much time and money.

Trying to pass on good advice from my own mistakes, but I guess a good quote comes in handy... "Some people just have to learn the hard way."