Fiberglass Horror Stories
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Fiberglass, Fabrication, and Interiors
Forum Discription: Fiberglass Kick Panels, Subwoofer Enclosures, Plexiglas, Fabrics, Materials, Finishes, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=52948
Printed Date: April 20, 2024 at 10:45 AM
Topic: Fiberglass Horror Stories
Posted By: milnimi
Subject: Fiberglass Horror Stories
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 6:55 PM
This is a great website for people to go to and get help on a variety of different projects. I was wondering if any one had any horror stories to share with the rest of us. Pictures would be great as always.
Replies:
Posted By: oonikfraleyoo
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 8:46 PM
Please guys, don't bring up the mustang. ------------- Nik
Jeeputer Progress
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Posted By: auex
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 9:24 PM
Why not????
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Certified Security Specialist
Always check info with a digital multimeter.
I promise to be good.
Tell Darwin I sent you.
I've been sick lately, sorry I won't be on much.
Posted By: oonikfraleyoo
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 9:30 PM
Oh, Ok go ahead. ------------- Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.
Posted By: darthness
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 9:31 PM
haha, that car was awesome.
Posted By: placid warrior
Date Posted: March 31, 2005 at 9:35 PM
hahaha..the mustang was the worst. My very first project was pretty bad, lol. i dont have progress pics, but just explaining it will make u cringe...OK it looks allright..cause its carpeted. (keep in mind i had absolutely no idea what i was doing at the time) The sub "boxes" are rectangle pieces of wood with a hole cut in it...for the fiberglass part i took some insulation and shaped it a bit how i wanted it, then biberglassed small pieces of fleece and stuck it to the insulation...after which i pulled most of the insulation out. After that i had a non sealed, 1 layer (fleece) fiberglass "box". The flat piece is 5/16" plywood (about 3 pieces to make the whole floor) which i screwed down (at least i had sense not to screw where the gas tank is, lol) The piece that the amp is on is held by 2 pieces of soft metal, screwed into the wood (3/4") and to the car body, with plexiglass aroung the edges (for lighting) the piece the amp is sitting on lifted up and my X-over was on the bottom with all the wiring. The carpet is stapled to the wood and glued on the sub "boxes". When i ripped all this junk out i had a couple garbage bags of mess. I fried the amp by running it at 2 ohms with the gain all the way up (hey at the time i thought it was bass controll, lol) The subs are in my current system and sound good. Good news is that the fiberglass was half decent, and i could still get bass..but i was only using a 75W x 2ch amp...pyramid at that. i thought it was good at the time...then i found this forum, thats when i ripped it out. Thats my horror. But my recent box(es) certainly came out nice...hope to get pics in a couple weeks.  .
EDIT: the trunk isnt obviously that wide...i couldnt adjust the pic to work out.
Posted By: realitycheck
Date Posted: April 01, 2005 at 7:20 AM
hehehe, let the mustang rest in peace.
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Learning the trade one fiberglass creation at a time!
Posted By: bluetruck
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 8:20 AM
does anyone have any pics of the stang' with 60 gallons of bondo in the trunk? that was the funniest thing i've ever seen. possibly the only person ever to total out a car using nothing but fiberglass and body filler. my first F/G box i didnt test the sub that was going into it before building the box, so i get it all hooxed up and the sub is dead so i got another (cheaper) sub and tried to screw it in but it was a slightly smaller 10" sub than the original so it didnt seal propperly. i got a big syrenge and filled it with very hot resin and sealed the sub to the box with this. (i later used an axe to remove the sub from this enclosure). not a great story but oh well.
Posted By: placid warrior
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 3:00 PM
hehe...i do like the part where u used the axe to remove the sub though. I cant see anyone doing any worse than the mustang
Posted By: DukeDuke
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 7:22 PM
Yeah, I do believe we need to let the mustang rest... I wonder if that guy even comes around here anymore since all the hell he got from that... but didn't he use like house insulation?
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Duke Duke
Posted By: axonal
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 7:40 PM
I think his mommie killed him after he turned the mustang into the world's largest paperweight.
Posted By: jbarb
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 8:42 PM
Alright, Im game.
First fiberglass project, misread "per ounce" as "per quart". After 24 hours I was left with soggy mat on a garbage bag.
After doing a couple projects I was learning how to control the curing process with temperature and hardener mix. I think I was doing like 4 or 5 layers at once with a pretty hot batch. All was well until I noticed it was smoking a bit and starting to turn colors. I spent the next half hour on fire-watch with a big fan and the doors wide open trying to reduce the room temperature.
Posted By: Alpine Guy
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 9:06 PM
In my old truck when i was 15 i had a little hole in the floor that i needed to patch up before i could get it certified. It was 10 am and i had an appt for my truck at 12 to get it certified and a tow truck was comming and all so i needed a quick fix to pass the safety, , so i whipped out the fiberglass and matting. I wanted it to cure fast so i mixed the resin to hardener to a ratio of 75/25 i believe, , it did the trick, it set up in about 2 min after mixing it up so the floor was done, , only problem was that it started crackleing and poping all around me and i looked in the mixing cup which was sitting in my truck, , it actually lit on fire and almost took the rest of my truck with it. Good thing i didn't leave it alone or i would have had some major problems.
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2003 Chevy Avalanche,Eclipse CD7000,Morel Elate 5,Adire Extremis,Alpine PDX-4.150, 15" TC-3000, 2 Alpine PDX-1.1000, 470Amp HO Alt.
Posted By: auex
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 9:51 PM
That is funny.
-------------
Certified Security Specialist
Always check info with a digital multimeter.
I promise to be good.
Tell Darwin I sent you.
I've been sick lately, sorry I won't be on much.
Posted By: oonikfraleyoo
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 11:01 PM
It really lit on fire?? Wow, I didn't know that was possible. One time I made a mold of tire well and wanted to do it quick so I laid one layer in the car, pulled it out and laid on like 7-10 more layers as quick as I could with a real hot mix. Bad idea! This thing got so hot that when I touched the dry backside, I burnt my hand. I spent the next 20 minutes watching my "enclosure" warp and fold itself up. By the time it had cured it was no longer even close to the same shape.
Next time I do some glassing I might try and recreate that fire thing though.  ------------- Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.
Posted By: 5150azn
Date Posted: April 02, 2005 at 11:35 PM
Goddam the mustang!!! I'm glad I was here to catch that post lmao. My horror story involves not enough hardener and rain. Building a center console I didn't mix enough hardner and then I left that sht outside so it wouldn't sink up the garage... So happens the next day rain starts comming down in sheets. I come home to a soggy mess of fleece and wood. Somehow the guy I was building it for was able to finish it himself in time for a car show and got 1st. I hate doing side jobs even though people search me out an pay me a lot of money. But I just don't have enough time to do things the way I want it.
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Tell the Snap-On guy I'm not here!
Posted By: Asmodeus
Date Posted: April 06, 2005 at 1:00 AM
The first fiberglass project I did was a corner box for a Jeep Grand Cherokee...The back,the bottom and one side was all MDF the visible side where the sub was mounted was to be glassed.... I had no Idea how many layers to use...I laid fleece and 3 layers of glass..... I was putting a Memphis HPO 12 in the box.... I got it all finished and painted to match the Jeep...It was beautiful...I worked my butt off on finishing the outside so that it wasnt wavy or had any little pits or nothing.. I thought I had done great the customer loved it...I fired the system up and at low volume it sounded Great so I thought Mission accomplished...Then when I turned it up it sounded good but then the whole darn thing just blew apart...The Glass busted and the sub fell out...I was very upset..I spent a lot of time on that thing...I just chalked it up to Murpheys law and inexperiance...Was funny for everyone but me....I thought it sucked... -------------  Making the World A Louder Place
Posted By: joebobcletusjr
Date Posted: April 11, 2005 at 5:38 PM
Well, I have not done too much with FG, and after reading all of this, I am not too sure if I ever want to again. The only experiments I have had (4 total) all turned out just fine because I followed all directions as well as I could, I did have one warp and I had another that I think the mixture was too hot so it had all kinds of indentions, and holes from the bubbling and poping and such. My worst box experience came with my first car, I had an 85 dodge daytona and I put 2 RF 18s in a self-designed 7th order bandpass (I think it is 7th order, baiscally I had the 18's wired parralell and separated in their own enclosures, and all four were firing into one single chamber in the middle with a monster vent)(built with 3/4 MDF I used a total of 3 and a half 4X8 sheets, just to give you an idea of the weight); this thing was a freaking monster, I took out my backseats and it streached from the back window of the hatch to the back of my front seats with them pushed forward a couple of inches, I started designing it before I even had the car, and I took some serious time planning and building it, and I even made a full size replica out of cardboard, just to bdouble check my math. and so when it was all built I tried to fit it into my hatch, and the sides were too wide to clear the opening for the hatch by 1/8 or an inch on both sides even with the trim off, so I had to pull this insaine-ly heavy box off of the lip of the hatch opening and use a circular saw to cut some off the top, side corners, then with a lot of getting a running start and slamming into it with my shoulder it finally slid in (after breaking the plastic panels at the far back (below where the hatch latches)) then when I went to shut the hatch I realized that the back end was too tall for the slope of the window, so I had to cut an inch off of that with the circular saw inside the car (because there was no way in hell this thing was ever comming back out of this car) and finally it fit. So after that I owned the car for a year and decided to buy a Blazer, because I needed more room for more subs (always more subs). so I sold the car, but of course I wasn't going to let my subs go with it, and with the boxes in the car there was only about 8 inches clearance between the top of the box and the roof of the car I couldn't just unscrew the plexiglass window and remove my subs, so I had to break out the circular saw once again (never let a 16 year old have a circular saw ) and had to cut the boxes out with that, so when I sold the car it had almost completely crapped out, and wasn't worth more than $300 in good condition, so I sold it to a guy I know that owned one at the time and was going to part it out, so I just threw the back seats back in and left it with a nice 4 inch coating of sawdust on everything. So with that all said, who wants to buy a car, or have me build them a box?... any takers?... This is definetely one of those learning experiences, you know, measure twice cut once, not measure once cut 10 or 15 times. ------------- eh? what did you just say?
Posted By: joebobcletusjr
Date Posted: April 11, 2005 at 5:41 PM
correction to the last post, it was 4 18 inch subs, not 2
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eh? what did you just say?
Posted By: Znergy
Date Posted: April 22, 2005 at 1:45 AM
How hard is it for someone that has never touched the stuff and knows nothing about it? I would reall like to learn how to do this and I have read many threads about it, but is there any tips or suggestions for a newb and F/G?
Posted By: 5150azn
Date Posted: April 22, 2005 at 10:32 AM
In my opinion fg is like installing in general. It's almost imposible to do it right through just trial and error. You have to have someone that knows what their doing to show you the hows and whys.
So don't go buying resin and bondo until you get someone to show you how to do it.... Just ask the mustang guy!
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Tell the Snap-On guy I'm not here!
Posted By: oonikfraleyoo
Date Posted: April 22, 2005 at 1:33 PM
I disagree. I started on my own. It wasn't until I was almost as good as I am now that I even met anybody that knew what they were doing. If you study up, you can do it without any training whatsoever. The mustang guy didn't study sh*t. Heck I think he even used fiberglass insulation. So, if your an idiot like him, please don't even ask anyone to help you, just forget about it and pay someone to do it for you. Otherwise, read, learn, do. ------------- Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.
Posted By: Znergy
Date Posted: April 22, 2005 at 1:45 PM
Are there any good videos or anything, that can take you step by step through the processes?
Posted By: Rick_h
Date Posted: April 22, 2005 at 2:59 PM
oonikfraleyoo wrote:
I disagree. I started on my own. It wasn't until I was almost as good as I am now that I even met anybody that knew what they were doing. If you study up, you can do it without any training whatsoever. The mustang guy didn't study sh*t. Heck I think he even used fiberglass insulation. So, if your an idiot like him, please don't even ask anyone to help you, just forget about it and pay someone to do it for you. Otherwise, read, learn, do.
As a Newbie, I totally agree. I have completed eight projects so far and not one failed. Did I find easier ways to do things as I made them, sure, thats part of the process of honing ones skills. Did I have prior FG experience, some, a long time ago I used it to fill a rust hole in a van I had. Am I as good as I am going to get, no, not till I die. This site gave me the spring board I needed to get off on the right foot. (Thanks ya all!) Rick H...
Posted By: abovestock
Date Posted: June 11, 2005 at 3:29 AM
I also agree with you all. Read read and read some more. Even when you think you know it all, you don't. I started off by myself and learned everything the hard way, like a hot batch catching fire wile I was holding the cup(it got really hot way to fast). But have patients and always listen to others because when you think you know it all you will fall hard on your ass.
Posted By: joebobcletusjr
Date Posted: June 14, 2005 at 5:01 PM
abovestock wrote:
I also agree with you all. Read read and read some more. Even when you think you know it all, you don't. I started off by myself and learned everything the hard way, like a hot batch catching fire wile I was holding the cup(it got really hot way to fast). But have patients and always listen to others because when you think you know it all you will fall hard on your ass.
yeah, you will probably end up setting yourself or your garage on fire the first time you do it, but usually not the second time. I started with really small projects like the first one was an alarm clock. I just removed the guts from an old one and (tried to) put it into a cool FG shell, yeah, by the time it was finished, it looked like the old mustang project without the 200lbs of cement it looks like he used. Just keep in mind the batch temperature is one of the hardest things to perfect other than mixing enough for the layers you want. Your first project will look like mustang (crap) if you don't spend some time here reading up; it may still turn out like crap because it does take some hands-on practice before you start making trunk molds. ------------- eh? what did you just say?
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