Custom Panels via Fiberglass

I have yet to do any work creating my own forms using fiber glass, and was curious if anyone knew of a good tutorial book, or howto guide somewhere that can give me tips on doing it. 

I want to manufacture two 6.5 and tweater speaker enclosures.  Also any ideas on where to purchase supplies that is the most affordable would be apperciated.

Thanks

Craig

ok, I found some decent tutorials on the net, I think I am going to give it a whirl....worse thing that will happen, is that it will look like crap and I will redo it...practice makes perfect right.....oh well....

I think I may provide some pictures along my way during this endevor.

Craig

Hey Craig... need some help ?? Here's a site for you:   https://groups.yahoo.com/group/glassmanscustomforum

Thanks Jeff,

I actually found that site and requested to become a member of the group so I can access all of their files.  I have decided, I will continue with one more day of research, since this is my first time doing fiberglass.  In the past I used bendy-board and made my moldings that way, but its time for me to enter into the big world.  Do you know what type of fiberglass matting to use?  or what materials/tools I need to make sure I have on hand?

Thanks

Craig

You won't be alone Craig.... I too am going to build my very first fiberglass speaker pods. Most of the sites I have come across on the web have left much to the imagination. I am for the most part going into this with little expectations for my first couple tries. I too am going to be taking pics along the way so I can get ideas from others and share what worked...

yea good call,

I will continue to post infos as I learn, there is A LOT of types of fiberglass mats that you can choose from, since it is so highly used in industry.  The shape I have to do for the door panels of the car is not to complex, just a few ridges here and there.  Plus having the speakers in a better enclosure sure ought to do a lot for performance as well as imaging. 

I am going to tape it off, then draw with a felt marker the pattern I want, after that I will apply some adhesive and cut a piece of fleece to fit, (i have read in several places this is the way to go to give extra backing and thickness to a standard fiberglass matt, although, I think with a 1/8inch mat, this may not be necessary still checking into it).  After that I will put resin on and apply the mat on top of that.  After it drys I should be able to easly remove it and begin bonding it up to fit the shape I want around a frame that I will build that will hold the speaker in place.  Not sure exactly how I am going to do the mounting of the grill and what not, I imagine I will leave some sort of lip or "routed edge" to screw the homemade grill plate too (1/4" board with holes cut where the speaker is and stretched grill cloth over it).  I have to cover it with vinyl to match the interior of the car, so that may be a bit tricky, but I think it is still doable. 

What is your plan of attack?

All thoughts and considerations welcome !

Craig

Hey Craig and Jeff;

Fiberglass is an awesome resource to use when you can get the right mix and the right tools for the job. Use chopped mat for fiberglass ( try to steer away from the woven stuff too soft ). Here's a big secret for kick panels.... use alot of masking tape. Mask the area that you want to fiberglass and use about 2 layers of masking tape. Leave the plastic kick panel portion where it is and use plastic to cover the carpet so no resin will stick to it if you end up dripping some on areas other than the intended spot. After you have taped up the area that you wish to mask ( make sure you mask more than the area ) take a felt marker and trace out the area that you wish the kick panel to cover and  you take a can of spray adhesive and spray the area with a layer of glue. let it get tacky and take the chopped mat and cut into strips of about 2 " wide by 6 inches long and cover the area with chopped mat until there is no more masking showing. Now take a mixture of resin and hardener ( you will have to experiment with the amount of hardener and resin ratio ) and apply it with a paint brush and paint it on until it is totally soaked through the chopped mat. Leave until dry and make sure your in a VERY WELL VENTILATED area and use a mask !!

Next you can pop out the mold of the back side of your newly acquired kick pod. Perfect mold of the kick panel and you can now cut off the extra fiberglass that is over the felt marker line that you had on the masking tape. take off the masking tape and  you can now thicken the mold with more chopped mat and resin and do this about 3 or 4 times.

Now for the front of the pos what you want to do is make trim rings out of MDF and use blocks of wood and hot glue gun to attach the trim ring to the back side of the mold you just made to get the proper angle for the kick pods. Once this is done and the angle is set inplace you take some fleece and wrap the front of the pod all the way to the back and pull tight all the way around. Hot glue the fleece tot he back side of the fiberglass mold and now you use just resin and hardener to apply over the fleece. Soak the heck out of the fleece and wait for it to dry. Once it has dried hard, you can cut out the holes for the speakers with a utility knife and once again start the fiberglass thickening process to the fron of the pod and the inside of the box.

Use bondo and polyester primer to finish the smoothness for painting or just use bondo if you are going to vinyl or carpet the project.

wow, thank you so much

I will post pictures as I attempt this endevor.

If you think of any other hints let me know!

Craig

Actually I did, use this method when you start with the glassing of the taped section:

..................when you apply the resin dont soak it all the way through or it will melt the glue with the heat from it curing. let that layer dry then you can go through and add more once you get the thickness you need pop the piece out and resin the back.

Well, I haven't gotten a chance to start glassin yet, due to poor weather.  Since I don't have a great ventilated area, I have to set up shop outside to do the glassin portion.  I have created my baffels out of MDF and I think they came out remarkably well, soon as I get the digital camera I will post those pictures. 

Craig

Got my speakers today and fit them to see how they are going to look. I learned I won't be able to use the mounting hardware for the tweeters that came with the components so will have to figure something out. Maybe I will use the flush mount and silicone it in place. I have both pods ready for resin and will have the first coat on tomorrow. I will then fill in the back side with fiberglass to help stiffen the pods. When all is dry I will lay on a thick coat of primer that will get mostly sanded off. This will let me get a good smooth finish to paint. The interior is old in this car so matching carpet or vinyl will be almost impossible. I just need to figure out what color I want to paint them.

Check out the latest pics at https://www.cardomain.com/id/1984gt

Hey Jeff.... nice work so far..... the only thing is that I would have put a more aggressive angle on those pods than that ( about a 30 degree pitch ) so that you get better imaging from the speakers and the tweeters.

Thanks Jeff, I wanted to angle them but I don't want to cut into the doors just yet and the speakers would have sat out farther from the door had I angled them. I want to get my feet wet with this project, then I will go ahead and make a set of custom door panels. The junk yard near me has several Celica's that I can pull door panels to practice on. I should have the pods ready for sanding tomorrow and then the paint will flow. I'll post more pics as I go....

Bondo is some real nasty $hit!!! I can now see why everyone who does this sort of thing has a good DA Grinder.. :)

I gave up trying to get a good finish using sanding primer to get a smooth finish and tried some Bondo to smooth things out. I got the stuff mixed up and started applying it to the pod. About 2 minutes later the stuff had gelled too much and would not go on smoothly. I used a little less hardener to see if I may have over done it and it did the same thing. How on earth do you guys do this stuff and make it look so easy??? I am just about ready to say "The He!! With It" and slap them in smooth finish or not. I guess if I wanted, I could carpet them or wrap them in vinyl but I really wanted to paint them.

I have newly found respect for the custom installers who work with fiberglass and make those smooth as glass parts. My hats off to you...

BTW!!!

Craig? have any Pics yet???

I posted a couple more on my site at https://www.cardomain.com/id/1984gt

The trick to bondo is get one that is higher quality so that it sands better instead of gumming up like that. Quality materials is very importatn here at this stage of the game.

Tomorrow is D day for mine, I made the baffels last weekend, but due to poor weather here, I could not proceed.  During the regular work week, school resumed for me, so I have yet to have free time to work on it.  But for sure tomorrow progress and pictures will be created.  I am tired of waiting!!!!!!

Craig

For some reason I can't get this massive grin off my face... I should have done this ages ago. I got the pods painted and they look like crap but I mounted them anyway and the sound, My God the sound is awesome. Consider my car had 3.5's in the front it's whole life and to now have 6.5 components up front just makes me want to cry with joy... You would not believe how much of a difference it made to mount these things like I did. I messed up and measured wrong on the clearance between the pods and the dash but made up for it by moving the pods back a bit away from the dash. They still hit a tiny bit but not bad enough to worry about. I already have plans for a new set of pods and with everything I learned in the process of making these, they can only be better.

Please check out my work and let me know what you guys think. https://www.cardomain.com/id/1984gt

Thank you all so much for the help,

Jeff,

yea I concur, they are a bit big!, can you recess them into the door by cutting way on the door panel some so they don't pertrude out so much, also the choice of paint is a little loud, but the pods themselve, door not included look great!.  The fiberglass is in the process of drying on the doors of the civic, when my fiancee gets back, we are going to download the pics from her camera and I will post them.  My pods are a bit more complex.  I had to put tape over the desired area since it was not flat to make the bottom portion of the molding, I will remove it from the door tomorrow, hopefully it isn't stuck!!!, I have 3 layers of tape so It should be fine.  When I get them posted you can let me know what you think!

Craig

Ok, its picture time!

Yes..I have pictures...

https://www.geocities.com/tingolia/craig/

Thanks for bursting my bubble Craig. I know I don't have the greatest car but my 2001 4runner will run your Honda over... lol

As I said before I really don't hold out much for the first couple tries. I am no way expecting anything first class out of my first endeavor into custom parts. I learned a lot with these pods and will use that new found knowledge to make an even better set next time. As for setting them into the doors, I have a small problem there. If I want to set them in even more than an inch and a half, I lose the ability to role down my windows all the way. I plan on make a pod that brings the speaker out the inch and a quarter that will need to stick out and recess the other inch and half in the door letting me still role the windows down. My next set will also go along with the form of the existing door panel.

Did you wax the tape before you laid on the glass and resin??? You may have a slight problem if you did not... If you don't mind my asking, why are you making panels for the stock speaker location? Are the speakers you are installing bigger or smaller??? Looks like you have a good start. I especially like the MDF rings. What did you cut them with? They look real nice.

No I did not wax the tape b/c I followed what velocity said in an earlier post, I didn't have any problems when I tested it on a small section of plastic that I had lying around to see how it would come off.  The speakers I am putting into this car (this is my Fiancee's car, not mine ) is 6.5" Cadence ZX.  I wanted to improve on the imaging and the sound quality by giving the speaker some form of enclosurer, plus this is great practice on an area wear there is a lot of odd shapes and contours.  The MDF rings were cut out using my own pattern, with a hole cutter and a 1/2 and cutaway router bit.  I cut the patterns out just outside of my line using a band saw, then fined tuned it with a large belt sander.  I cut the circles out using a drill press with my adjustable circle cutter attached.  I then had a router mounted upside down in the bottom of a table (so just the blade is visiable from the top) to router out the lip you see in the picture, the grill section I used the same 1/2 router as before, but then used a cutaway bit to make the circle all the way through since my circle cutter I have does not adjust to 6.75 inches.  Not to difficult, but having the right tools is key.  A friend of mine lets me use his custom cabinet shop now and again for custom jobs, or job I do that require a lot of cutting, I make a lot of my boxes and stuff there, very nice facility.  FYI, I wasn't raggin on your ride :)...just agreeing with your point.   I think if you changed the color of the paint it might look a bit better, blend in more so it doesn't stick out so much.  Also you mentioned you were going to build your own panels so that will look a lot better anyway and you can make your own custom enclosures on the new panels ...  if the panel is similar to the ones you currently have you can cut some of the panel away from behind, (still leaving room from your window, and allow the pod ot rest in maybe 1/2 and inch or so, depending on the thickness of your door panel.  Measure 20 times and cut once!!!! :)

I always hate it when I think I have it perfectly measured, build the thing and it is 1/2" off or something stupid because I made a stupid error....I did that now and again when I first started doing design work in cars, really got aggervating, so now I measure it one day, then recheck it the next day, and that usually eliminates that problem...

Craig

No problems Craig, I was just pulling your leg.

A router is on my list of items to get in the near future. Many years ago I had access to a wood shop as well but I moved and driving 2 hours in LA traffic is not high on my list of thing I want to do. I have a jig saw and a scroll saw that work just fine to cut out most anything I need. It would be nice to have a DA Sander and a Router for projects like this though. I will definitely have those before I start work on my sub enclosure and amp rack. I have all kinds of ideas running through my head and need a few more tools to make them a reality.

Keep posting those pics for us. I love seeing what other people are able to make from piles of wood and fiberglass.

heh, no prob, the pods are looking great thus far, I will post more pics tonight, right  now they are drying, and I should be able to do the sanding and stuff in an hour or 2.....

i wouldn't want to DRIVE anywhere in LA......screw that....I think the movie FALLING DOWN would become real life for me if I did.

Craig

ok todays pics are there!

https://www.geocities.com/tingolia/craig/

Craig

Post report:  I had no problems removing the fiberglass panel from the masking tape, it popped right out!!!

I do recommend that you always overlap when you do this, because you can alway sand later to get a better fit.

Today was long, a lot of sanding, and itching from fiber glass particles all over my body! But other than that, it was sucessfull.

Tip of the day for fiberglass sanders:

• When you itch from the fiberglass particles in your skin, take a cool shower and your pores will close and then the fiberglass doesn't get into your skin as bad.

yes, i figured that out!!!!

the hard way!