attica

hey i know you can do it but i dont know how to mold a dashboard?

PTPbracket

make a mold for a dashboard? or like make it seamless lol??

perseverance

well..if you're making a mold of a dashboard...first i'd take it out. then i'd wrap it all in masking tape... probably 2-3 coats. then i'd get some fiberglass resin and apply it to the tape...and then add fiberglass chopmat to that. after a few coats, it will get very strong. eventually you'll be able to pull it off. I don't know what you're looking to do with it. but if it's something custom, then you'll just sand it all smoothe, apply bondo, cut where you'd put ur gauges and whatever else you wanna do. then paint. I dunno what you're aiming to do tho so i can't give u the best of instructions.

uberEFtuner

Mold making is very expensive and difficult. If you make a bad mold from the original dash then your copy will look like crap. I assume you are wanting to copy the original dash?

If someone paid me to do one I would make a new one from scratch. Plus you can make your own anyway you like it.

fav6052

That would be an awful way to do it.

To make a mold of a dash. You would want to wax the dash with about 6 coats of carnuba wax. Then spray on about 3 coats of PVA mold release. This would all be after you blocked off all holes for the cluster and climate control and things like that. After the PVA you would want to preferably spray on a few coats of tooling gelcoat. Then you would begin to laying on fiberglass mat with vinyl ester resin so I doesn't shrink and loose shape. (cheap resin from pepboys will shrink. i promise) After about 5 or 6 layers of fiberglass you could then pull the original dash out. Once you have just a mold you would then want to wet sand the entire inside of the mold from 320-1500. Then you would buff the inside of the mold to a mirror like shine. Then you would wax the mold about 6 times.

Now depending on if you want a fiberglass dash or a carbon fiber dash constructing a new dash could be done in two different ways.

To do fiberglass:
-After the mold is waxed spray on PVA mold release
-spray on normal gelcoat(i add black pigment to mine)
-begin to layer on fiberglass mat. You'll probably only need 1 layer of thinner 3/4oz mat and 2-3 layers of 1.5oz mat. I would still continue to use vinyl ester resin or a high grade polyester resin.
- once everything dries you would pop it out of the mold and trim it to fit. also cut out all holes for the cluster and that good stuff.
- You will probably want to sand the new piece down with 320 and 400 and prime it. It may need a little filler on areas that you managed to get bubbles between the gelcoat and fiberglass. After you prime it you're good to paint.

To do carbon fiber would be much more work and you could do it as a wet layup or a vacuum infused setup and both would involve a decent amount of knowledge in vacuum bagging and plenty of experience with less difficult parts.

Im not even sure what you are trying to accomplish here but I hope this can help. I make custom carbon fiber and fiberglass parts so I know a few things.

I'd recommend a place to buy supplies but sometimes people get weird about people plugging companies that arnt sponsors here.

attica

well i kinda want to make my dashboard into carbonfiber and i think it would be less $ to make your own...right?

fav6052

It would indeed be less money. But you have no experience with composites obviously. Carbon fiber isnt cheap to learn on. I'll make you a dash.

blaze_125

If you get it right the first time... Yes

fav6052

Yeah a mold for the dash alone would be fairly expensive and would probably have to be a few different pieces depending on the shape. The mold it self would take quite some time in it self to build. I would then produce at least one fiberglass dash from that mold and test fitment before I moved onto molding a carbon fiber one.

attica

i have a crx 91 si so i dont think there much to a dash

Jenkinsal2

Im assuming you are doing this for looks right? even molding the dash in CF is going to at best make a few pound difference. Why not just get CF decals applied from a vinyl place?

attica

because it would look better if it was all CF.and i do NOT like fake CF.

redboost10

i see your in washington, if you would rather have someone with more experience tackle this, give these guys a call

http://www.stohr.com/html/contact.html

we have made some crazy stuff out of cf, and got some things in mind for the offseason

Jenkinsal2

I understand and I am in complete agreement with you and I have trouble with stuff like this sometimes as well. Just ask yourself is it honestly worth the price tag? think about what else you could do with the money. If you still want it go for it. I definitely would recommend having someone else do it unless you plan on doing other pieces because with the cost of tools you are going to be out a good deal of money and generally with thing like this there is a learning curve so expect a few failures before you come out with a gem.

Good luck to you either way.

attica

i moved to kentucky just a month ago i miss washington!!but thats the thing i dont think any one over here would do it.i need to ship my crx over here still.but i want to do everything in my crx CF.and i have time and some money to do it.but i dont know where to start..so thats why i am posting this is because it would be nice to get help started

redboost10

the post that fav6052 made above is a general procedure of what it will take to do what you wanna do

fav6052

Yeah I tried to explain it the most general way I could. Im not going to spoon feed people my business.

attica

??? how would i jack business from you?can you pm me some pics?i just want to do it on the side for my slef.

got wide

first of all its gonna be a lot more expensive to to make your own. cost of materials just to make the mold alone are gonna be close to the cost of buying the part already made. if you have to have a cf dash find a company that will work with you to make it for you and then they can make more to sell and profit off of. or if its just for looks and you want to be cheap you can still use real cf and just do an overlay of the stock dash. tear all the vinyl off, clean it up, lay the cf, and apply resin.

fav6052

I don't think you understand. First of all you barely can type. Second, you wouldn't jack my business. I'm just not going to give you step by step detailed instructions on how I make my parts. It took me 2 years to learn how to do all of this on my own doing my own research. I don't mean to sound selfish, but I see my work as a craft that you don't just explain to people. This isn't a matter of teaching you how to change your brakes. Its much more involved than that. I have over $1500 just in my vacuum setups I run and they're not anything special to be honest.

I gave you guidelines which will help you for looking up stuff on the internet to learn. There are also lots of books you can read on composites.

pheurton-skeurto

what the hell is a book?

pheurton-skeurto

...not a good comment to make when you're looking for info on a Honda-related internet forum.

despite your poor attitude, here's a link that will help get you started...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=composites

attica

here check this link out
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=why+your+so+gay

fav6052

Im not going to spoon feed you dude. Figure it out. Watch you tube videos of fiberglass mold making. Read ****. Yes I know, reading is an ancient concept. Do you need me to hold your hand while you wack off too?

heres a **** ton of free articles that you can read.
http://www.fibreglast.com/contentpag...chures-23.html

places to order supplies. all great companies with great customer support.

uscomposites.com
sollercomposites.com
fibreglast.com

Mold making videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzng9HeGNPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqHoA...eature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cODt...eature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsvga...eature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fKlDzemPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWiSSLPf6JI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12pUg9ypVU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb8QnQf72Rg

everyone has their own way of doing things.
heres a forum on fiberglass and carbon fiber.
http://fibretalk.fibreglast.com/foru...isplay.php?f=4

redboost10

those are good videos. there are a lot of supplies that you need as well:
resin
cotton
clothe
fiberglass matt
vacuum bag and all that stuff for that step
oven
spray gun
pva
mold release wax
catalyst
styrofoam, and not just any styrofoam, although the **** at lowes works fairly well
bondo
bondo catalyst
clay
polyester primer
gel coat
malonie board or however you spell it
polish for the mold before you lay down the carbon
etc meaning misc tools needed
and of course you need the prepeg cf
im sure im missing stuff.

its fun none the less