Making Fiberglass Body Panels Ep 2 The Roof! 

Awesome! I used to work in a fiberglass shop years ago. If you drill small 1/8” holes in the mold and cover them with a little bit of masking tape before you do your layup you can lift the part out with compressed air... you’re doing fine though if it’s working for you keep going the way you are!

Hi Doug! This is the best and sincere and most informative video about DIY fiberglass moulding in the internet for sure! I found all the answers, tips, tricks, pros, cons about the procedure! The comments are also very helpful! Thanks everyone! Cheers from Ankara, Turkiye!

I believe the problem in the back is most likely due to the mold flexing. What you may need is a jig that becomes a part of the roof mold. Also, since the roof mold is subject to flexing, you may want to add more layers of glass mat to increase the mold's stiffness and thereby it's ultimate strength. I am not a pro, however, I did meet someone from Tennessee about twenty years ago who made his own VW molds and every piece sat in it's own separate jig. Just a thought. Great job!

Awesome video and great comments from the viewers. I am getting confidence to try and learning a lot from all of you, thanks.

You can put an air fitting into your mold on future projects ,then you can use air to pop your mold off. I have also used a water hose and the Corresponding fitting. Great job BTW!!

Good day! Just thought I'd chime in with a tip. Try trimming it when it gets to what is called the green stage. there's nothing green about it in the way of color, but when the resin or epoxy is kicking off it will get to a leathery(green) point and you can trim it with a retractable blade knife. Saves a lot of trimming with a cutoff wheel and all the horrible dust. I built fiberglass body parts for years and anything that cuts down on grinding is a big help. Other than that it's looking great! Cheers from Canada.

I learned many things from this coll video. Thanks a lot

Looks awesome! Just a tip, bring the fiberglass down to a local linex shop or get your own bedliner and coat the inside of the glass. It will stiffen up the glass quite a bit and deaden the sound.

you don't need to change directions with the cloth unless you can get it at a 46 degree to one another. Cloth is the strength where mat it what you use for the fill. Use the mat with poly resin because it breaks down the fussy fibers around the strands. Also you don't have to buff off the haze on the wax. The natural heat of the curing melts it away. I use cheap wax all the time and it works great ! keep up the great work !

Cool stuff man. Fun to follow the process along. The roof looks like it came out really nice.

Looks great brother 🤙if you put a little epoxy in a syringe and inject it between the separated layers it should give you a neat repair. I look forward to seeing it on the new chassis.

Super glue. as a kid my dad taught me to super glue all the crashed areas of our fiberglass RC car / helicopter parts and it always made the ends stronger and survive crashes much better

don't lose your enthusiasm, learning is the part of development. those marks of duct tape is normal if you don't smooth the surfaces.I learned that on my first fiberglass class of 1996 and I never tried it again, now I need to clone some car body parts and your effort is appreciated. Best wishes!

put resin first on the gelcoat, then put the fiberglass on the wet resin, then apply more resin where needed, use roller to remove air. You can also buy sanding gelcoat, this sands very well, you can paint it later with normal car paint. Nice project ! like it ! greetings from belgium.

I'm watching this series in the planning for trying to make a removable hardtop for my '07 mustang convertable. Anyone got any suggestions?

If you want the part to release really easy when you get the wedges started get a water hose and spray water in between the mold and the part. This will break down the PVA and it come apart a lot easier.

Thanks a lot for the tips! Now it's time to try in my workshop....

Great work and well presented Thanks for taking us along on you journey.

I agree with what you said about really liking each bit of the car otherwise you lose your energy. Me too. I can get so despondent sometimes.

Really enjoyed watching this and the first episode as well. I like seeing your mistakes and self critiques as you, because it makes others feel more comfortable about trying it! Good job on the skin and the video!

+1 on the syringe comment. Also to avoid dry spots use a metal roller like we do for boat parts. Loved the video. Epoxy is top of the line stuff but so incompatible with anything. Consider vinyl ester over gp, so strong and still compatible with anything. If you crash you crash so I'm guessing that's why you chose epoxy. Love ur workshop and ur skills. Keep the vids coming bro.

Wow great video Man. one of not many who works in air mask to keep healthy lungs! keep going.

if you ever decide to make another copy i would recommend priming the mold. you will be able to see all the imperfections that way instead of seeing the light through it. then you can fix the imperfections before making a copy. good job! really good work.

Vaccum bagging will make for a much better resin to cloth ratio and produce better adhesion than hand wetting the cloth

Really great work. Especially for a part of this size. 👍👍👍 If you do another piece in the future, put some reinforcements in the areas where the roof attaches to the frame. By reinforcement I mean some extra layers of fibre glass. With just two layers the roof might rip off during the first desert 🌵 race. 😉 Also don’t underestimate the flex of the roll cage. The roof shell will be subjected to some serious shear load. Keep going on this great work. And please do not roll this car!

I love the idea of the replaceable roof panels. Having the mold and the skill at any given moment in need is worth every penny of the investment and time. If you end up with an extra or damaged. I’d like to buy it. I had a front engine coyote swapped 68 bug I’m building. Is just chopped up the body and the roof section is a concern. It also has a sunroof. Having the ability to throw a solid fiberglass roof would be cool. Keep up the awesome work! 🤙🏻

When making moulds use gel coat if not you need to primer the mould after and wet sand and use metal paddle rollers to remove air and gives you a smoother finish on mould making and finished piece.

Love your work if you can work with fibreglass and have a dummy to work with anything's possible and a bit of creativity congrats champ

Great project and video. Thanks for sharing. I'll check out that podcast.

Hey, great work on the mold and the roof skin! I assume you are using normal woven glass fabric. Are you using polyester gelcoat? If so, vinyl ester might be a better way to go. It stinks like polyester but is more compatible with the epoxy resin you mention for the rest of the layup. Quite possibly, you pulled the wet fabric loose from the mold with the squeegee, creating the bridging (where the layup didn’t follow the mold contour) Waxing the mold should be followed up with buffing the wax like you would on your car. Spraying the PVA should start with a couple “dusting” coats. This gives the final “wet coat” of PVA something to hang on to (seeing as a waxed surface repels) the PVA should flow out glossy. Are you cutting the PVA with water before spraying? That might help in getting a thin, even, glossy finish. If you like, I could respond with other layup tips as this is getting lengthy. 🤪 cutting the excess laminate with a razor knife after the layup is tak free (hard but not cured) is a great suggestion by a guy that commented earlier. Again, great work!

Great work mate !

Looks good

hi doug next time spray the gelcoat on 2 uniform coats a cheap gun will do just clean with thinners when finished brushing can be hit and miss and the crease at the back use a heat lamp get the fibre glass hot hot and use a piece of wood and clamp the crease till it is flat then let the fibre glass cool it should stay pretty flat because resin is a form of plastic the fibre glass gets pliable when it gets hot.just heat the crease till it get hot enough so you cant touch it and then see how pliable it becomes hope this helps nice first try

Good friend I'm not hating on your work just sharing a bit of knowledge if you use packing tape it will be better that duck tape polyester does not stick to plastic and it's better because it does not leave lines like duck tape does that bottom wrinkel happens when you brush the product and you leave a lot of material but looks very good 👍

I recently designed a body for a custom kit car, I can't wait till I get the huge ass foam plugs back, I'm gonna need a much bigger garage to store everything

Real nice work and well explained. I have never done fibre glass work, but have purchased items and feel that when taking a mould from an existing body, there should be more time spent bracing the mould so when it is used to make the copy it holds its position or default so to speak. I note you relied on the curvature to help keep the shape, but did it! Maybe you could comment on how you see it now that you have taken a copy from your mould. Best wishes and keep up the great work.

I have a suggestion for next time. blow air with compressor while separating the mold

Great results! I'm building a fiberglass body now as well, and trying to decide how many layers of glass to use. In your next video, could you please show how flexible/stiff your roof is by pressing down in the middle with your finger. .. Thanks

Still need that 1966 Charger headliner Backing Board made? It will be covered with the OEM Foam Cloth?

i think i recognise the ripples from the last video, when you were taking of the mold from the car

Congrats ,very nice job 👍👏💯💯

Hi BDoug. Really great content sir! The more videos of yours I see the more I enjoy your channel. Better and better each episode. Have you seen "Throttle Stop Garage"? Craig I think his name is, he is making carbon fiber panels for an old volvo. He also has great informative videos, check him out if you haven't already. Also he's nearly finished so you should easily find an episode that would answer most question. And also also, he use composite envisions brand and has great things to say about them. Carry on sir, cant wait to see Ratchet rollin along

Amazing, subbed 🙌

All good stuff. So some of the problems you encounter. the ripple in the gelcoat is prerelease Id say styrene attacked the gelcoat and caused the ripple. The separation between the laminate and gelcoat is a workmanship fault. the laminate needs to be rolled as apposed to squeegeed. Two reasons one to work the air out between layers and two to work the resin through the laminate just because it looks wet doesn't necessarily mean there's resin worked into the fiber. And lastly the laminate is what give a part strength resin is just the glue that holds it all together and gelcoats just a finish really. a good engineered laminate will make strong parts. by engineered I don't mean add more layers. Something like a CP Membrane between 2 layers of 225CSM in between the laminate you have would make the world of difference. Keep up the good work.

Hi dude use a resin roller to make the fiberglass mat stick to give were it has separate try forcing resin into the gap if not you will need to cut out the bad bits and redo I hope that helps

Looks really great! How much money have you got in fibreglass and associated bits to get this far? Trying to gauge what a full size mini shell in fibreglass would cost me. Thanks 😊

Man your killing it. I should have you come help do some fiberglass dash and hood on the ultra4s!

The PVA is what makes it slightly rough, just wax is the whey to go, 😁

Hi Doug is there any reason you chose cloth rather than chop strand matt🤔 thanks your video s are fab for newbies 🥴

Would using compressed air from a rubber tipped gun make removing the fiberglass easier than using plastic shims/wedges; kind of like how we used to remove old bicycle grips from the handlebars when we were kids? I never worked with glass fabric before, but I would be so scared of destroying it with the removal techniques of shoving shims between the two parts. Awesome build really enjoy your videos, and so looking forward to seeing more. Thank you for the awesome videos.

did the gel coat have to fully dry before the first resin coat? also, would it be easier to make it only two layers of fiber, remove it from the mold and then put it back in the mold to had more layers? Cheers, enjoying your vids

THE THREE LAYERS GIVE IT STRENGTH...THAT AND EPOXY RESIN IS TOUGHER THAN CHEAP POLYESTER RESIN YOU BUY AT MOST STORES

why didn't you just gel coat the mold from part1? or are you planning on dupilcating more roofs?

Some useful tips in a highly informative video. Are you planning to fabricate more roofs? If not, why didn't you just use the original roof as a mold to make a skin for Wratchet?

I'm trying to do some research on how to make a fiberglass roof for my 240sx s13 convertible because I really don't like the convertible look and no one is selling any aftermarket roofs so do you have any tips on how I can make hinges on the roof if I make it out of fiberglass and if I instal a roll cage how much can I use that into my advantage? I'm sorry I'm new and have no knowledge on fiberglass but I'm really interested and would like to know more and thank you for putting these videos up for the public and sharing your experience, im still watching your videos to learn more

If you do it again try useing a 3" roller short nap to move the resin

I think you should use the gelcoat in the first step , while you making the mold

👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

Hey I really liked the video's. So I bought a hood from an early baja bug, the one with the headlights close together at the nose and I put it on my sand rail that has a radius roof similar to a baja bug. There's spacing from the hood to the door panels and I dont know how to make what I want and to make it look good. Do you have any suggestions.

Any chance you could link the gel coat?

Air bubbles , get a fiberglass roller looking good

I see kits available soon , rolling chassis & body $$$

Are you using polyester gellcoat with epoxy?

If the gel coat smells that bad, your probably using polyester resin (I may be wrong). Polyester & epoxy don’t mix. I have done it before & heard others do it with no problem but I wouldn’t recommend it. Use epoxy surface coat, pretty much epoxy gel coat, next time. And also, make your molds flawless. Your part is going to be a replica of your mold. I see a lot of people not making them so good. Then your spending so much time with repairs.

That looked more like masking tape, wax it 3 times spray the gel coat and make a small metal roller with the curve of the roof to remove the extra resin off and make sure the edges are not dry...

haha,easy work, i has made many many mold to glassfiber, car and boat mold, and then factory has made many hundre boat and car parts my mold. easy job. wood mold top coat, wax, etc. before i buy new car and then made mold front and rear bumbers and if someday crash car somewere have own mold in home full front and rear all parts, easy made new bumper and body parts. cheap simple work and no newer need go expensive body repair shop.

You don’t need PVA if you wax.

I love the job that you’re doing and the documentation that you’re doing but some constructive criticism would be you ramble on a little bit

Awesome video! Love to see the progress of this build. Check out the Throttle Stop Garage channel on here. He has some great detailed videos of making carbon fiber body panels. You might be able to pick up some useful tips

Thanks so much! You're leading the way for me to start my own project: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gDvgVBFieqQ.html

Looks good