hi, im new to fiberglassing and i want to glass my dash. it is plastic and is sort of textured. ive sanded all the texture out and think that I am ready to glass. so the next step is to figure out what all im going to need. i bought a fiberglassing kit from Wally-World and dont know if it will work. is the fiberglass going to stick to the plastic? do i apply resin on first and then some matting? what do i do?
I would say that if you have sanding marks in the dash, that are relatively deep (something that the fiberglass resin can hold on to) then you should be ok. It is really up to preference, I like to put the mat on where I want it and then brush the resin on. Are you covering any air bags or anything?
Matt
What are you trying to accomplish by glassing your dash? Are you just trying to make a mold? Are you wanting the look of "gel coated" painted ? If you are just going for the look it would be much easier work to use a spray on body filler (like Select Products sells) and sand it smooth to paint, rather than glassing and bondo-ing
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My mechanic told me, "I couldn't fix your brakes, so I made your horn louder"
Im trying to get that Gel-Coating look, how effective would the spray-on filler work, would the outcome be just like glassing it?
the polyester primer is the best route to go. there area bunch of different types and they are all pretty much the same. as long as it takes MEKP as the hardner you are all set.
spray it on. sand it with 80,220,400 and paint it. it will wtick very well and it will save a bunch of time.
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With a foberglass dash you have infinit possible choices on where to put stuff, and all other custom decisions. i say go for the glass dash <plus its lighter then stock right???>
I just undertook the task of fiberglassing the dash in my 95 saturn. Here's what I did:
1. Remove dash
2. Cover dash with two layers of heavy-duty tinfoil to make sure none of the resin sticks to it. (don't want to ruin the stock dash....i might sell this car one of these days)
3. Spray the tinfoil with 3M adhesive spray or a thin coat of resin to allow the mat to conform to the shape of the dash.
4. After it's in place, brush on a healthy coat of resin with a paint brush. Wait until this dries completely and check for thin/weak spots. If there are any, take some scrap pieces of glass mat and patch them up.
5. After all the glass has set and hardened, get out the trusty gallon of bondo and the non-stick rubber scrapers and start molding the dash to your taste. In my saturn, the dash lines were really square looking, so i rounded them out and added a few little personalized touches for a completely custom look.
6. Sand. Sand. Sand. Just when you think you're done sanding, sand some more. When your fingers are all calloused and cracking open, you might be close to being done.
7. Prime and paint.
I'm still in the sanding stage (been doing it for three days now) and it looks pretty swell so far. I'm taking pictures of the whole process and I'll post a link to them as soon as they're developed.
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Pimpin' a Saturn ain't easy!