Fiberglass Piece to Hold an LCD Monitor

I'm making a fiberglass piece to hold an LCD monitor and want to attach it to an existing dash piece(plastic) and then blend the 2 pieces together.

1. Do I just use resin/hardener to "stick" the 2 pieces together and then, when dry, sand the joints smooth?

2. What's the best way to replicate the grain of the existing dash plastic onto the glass? I plan to paint the entire piece, but want it to closely match what I already have.

Thanks!

it would be easier if i knew the year and car or truck that it is going in...

what I always do is take that screen apart.....take the display part out , so you just have the front part of the housing..... once you set there.....you have a couple options on how to proceed....first is you can cut the dash piece so the housing will fit in the dash flush, if thats the case you can just  use ca glue to hold it for now.

if you want it to sit back a little bit, or it has to, what you can do is cut and shape little pieces of abs plastic to fill the recession gap, CA glue the pieces to the dash piece at the angle that you need and then to the housing of the monitor.

then rough it up really good with 40 grit sand paper.....make sure there are some good grooves in it..... then rough up the rest of dash with 80 grit....then wipe the dash really well with wax and grease remover to get rid of all the armor all and crap that builds up on dashes....once the wax and grease remover id dried...whipe it again with a clean dry cloth to get rid of the residue.

now there is some people that say body filler or duraglass wont stick to plastic.....it does to a certain degree.....as long as you are not using it to support something (i.e. hold your whole kick panel in place) you are usually good.

once it is all glued in place, go through and smooth it in with some good bodyfiller. sand. once it is smoothed pretty good spray the entire dash with a polyester high build primer (i.e. feather fill) and sand with 80 grit, 220 grit....the next step depends on how you wanna finish it .

if you wanna paint the whole thing or parts of it ....sand those parst with a 400 grit next.....then wipe with the wax and grease remover then paint...

if you wanna texture it first then dye it or paint it .....you can get away with the 220 grit.....the product to use is the green can of 3m rocker panel spray.....its the medium to large texture......set your piece down lower and spray this from about 5 feet away.....this will let the larger "chunks" fall on the piece and the mist will go elsewhere.......give it a good coating and let it dry usually takes about 15-30 minutes to dry...make sure the texture is gonna be close to what you want .....then take 400 grit and (using light pressure) sand the piece again.......this gets all the high spots even, and gives you a good looking texture..........if done right you can match the texture almost exactly, but it will take some practice to get it right ......so play around on some scap abs plastic od wood to get the hang of it....

once the texture is sanded.....wipe it again with the wax and grease remover (just to make sure there is not oils or anything on the piece) then you are ready to dye it .................hope this helped.

Very informative reply. Thanks!

The monitor is going in an '01 SuperCrew and will sit on top of the dash. Actually it will sit on top of the radio surround trim piece. I invision the new piece as sort of a rounded rectangle with smoothed corners at the bottom going right and left to blend in with the radio trim piece. I will have to remove some material from the top of the radio trim (the portion that the new piece sits over) to allow the monitor to slide in from the bottom. The radio trim will then just snap back in place as it does now. The bond between the old and new piece will have to be solid as it will be holding the weight of the monitor.

Thanks again for a great reply!

Wow!  Thanks for the tutorial audiomechanic

What is "ca glue"? 

ca glue is a glue that is used for many hobby purposes...mainly models and R/C cars.  Its kinda like a super glue.

I get mine here www.towerhobbies.com

Cool thanks.   Gap-filling, black gap filling,...Probably could've used many times previous.

Does it dry   hard, semi-hard, perm flex?

it dries hard....you can sand it too!!

What you are thinking of doing is very similar to what I just did in my 2002 Toyota Tundra.  I dissasebled the monitor and pulled out the raw screen and remote eye.  I then made ABS plastic to trim it in the double DIN opening, painted the abs in a satin black finish, and secured it with JB Weld (works best in these applications in my opinion).  The remote eye I hid in the a/c duct of my dash.  This is my first time to post in this forum so I hope i can get the pic to show up.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding my install.

Looks great, Smooth04! Where did you mount your HU?

I thought of doing a screen where you put yours, but I would have to move the AC controls and the HU and just don't have the room. I have an F150 and the dash looks very similar to yours. If you can picture this, I plan to make a pod to hold the LCD that mounts to, and blends in with  the radio surround, and would sit on top of the trim piece. The location would be similar to mounting above where your screen is and it would be sticking up above the top of the dash a little.