SO, as the title says, i am gonna make some door cards.

I plan on buying one off a junked car, and making a fiberglass mold off it.
I will use foam and/or clay to fill in areas I dont want and to make it easier to mold.

I have never done this before.

I woudl like to know how you get the cloth of carbon to follow curves and contures without getting all wrinkley. I imagine you have to cut some slits in it to do that?

i have never felt plain fabric, i imagine it doesnt stretch at all.

If i were doing fiberglass I would just cut pieces and lay a mbunch of individual pieces, but I want the card to have the appearence of uniformity in the pattern of the weave and dont know how I would get that by cutting the fabric up.

advise?

how much woudl someone charge to just do this? how much money am I saving by DIY?

 

Good project...first time carbon fiber workin can be fun....

As far as the contours go, this is really why twill weave was made. Twill weave carbon will allow some movement over curvatures and what not. When you lay your carbon over the piece dry, it'll appear to not want to go into the curves and lay, but as long as it isn't too extreme, once the carbon is wet with resin you can work it to lay down.

This IS NOT a good first time carbon fiber project....take it from me. Carbon has a learning curve, so starting simple is where it's at.

Pricing concerns are well....generally to get all the resin, gel coats (if you do molds), mold releases, carbon itself, shipping....believe me...it's an investment. If this is your only true project, then just pay out to have it done.

I myself have always been about doing things and learning new skills, so I spent the money, bought this massive roll of 12k x 12k twill, some smaller chuncks of carbon/kev, fiberglass, a bunch of supplies...I went nuts. Did I learn how to lay carbon and make nice stuff...sure, but it cost me believe that. If you do undertake it though, when you finally get to the point you make something nice...you'll feel good about it.

 

thanks!
i was planning on vaccuume bagging it, and using my car running at idle for a vacuume pump, and if needed i have another car i can use. oone at each end of the mold!

i would use a scrubber to trap any resin sucked out to spare the car.

i looked online at some instructional videos on how to make a mold, but you know door cards are not like exact, i was thinking of just doing an overlay on the stock card, or using the stock card as the mold, and bagging it on top of the card.

how does that sound?

 

are you talking about door skins? also lol at the car idling vacuum.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hootiehoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thanks!
i was planning on vaccuume bagging it, and using my car running at idle for a vacuume pump, and if needed i have another car i can use. oone at each end of the mold!</TD></TR></TABLE>

That is just about the most awesome DIY trick I have ever heard

I would practice by laying fiberglass twill the same density as the carbon

 

i was finding out that pumps that can pull like 20in cost a few hundred.

i remember on my boost gauge i pull 20in all the time.

SO, there ya go, a free pump, and multiple cars available if i need more volume.

door cards=door skins.

i think this will be pretty easy. i mean its a stupid door cards. as long as its smooth and shiney, it will look good.

better than running no cards, and almost as light!

 

Getting into vacuum bagging your getting into a whole 'nother realm of costs. For what your doing vacuum bagging is overkill in my opinion. You can make "door cards" on a piece of cheap lexan or glass from home depot and just do a wet layup. Way less work, way less cost, and still a good outcome.

 

how about the nice glossy finish though?
how would i get that on a wet layup?
id have to sand for hours.

i think the bag woudl save time.

i would simply use garbage bags cut, and use a plate of glass or something as the base. i would then tape the bag to cover the part.put the resin on the part, lay it on the mold, few layers, then apply vaccuume to the bag.

i think i may just apply plaster on a junk door card to make the mold.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hootiehoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how about the nice glossy finish though?
how would i get that on a wet layup?
id have to sand for hours.

i think the bag woudl save time.

i would simply use garbage bags cut, and use a plate of glass or something as the base. i would then tape the bag to cover the part.put the resin on the part, lay it on the mold, few layers, then apply vaccuume to the bag.

i think i may just apply plaster on a junk door card to make the mold.</TD></TR></TABLE>

minimal apperance diffrence at best.that shiny finish is the gel coat

i belive vacumn baged stuff is lighter and stronger becuase the resihn comes out and is actually pressed together.........

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hootiehoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how about the nice glossy finish though?
how would i get that on a wet layup?
id have to sand for hours.

i think the bag woudl save time.

i would simply use garbage bags cut, and use a plate of glass or something as the base. i would then tape the bag to cover the part.put the resin on the part, lay it on the mold, few layers, then apply vaccuume to the bag.

i think i may just apply plaster on a junk door card to make the mold.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No offense, but the procedures and equipment your proposing is a pure setup for failure. You also need felt absorbtion material when vacuum bagging, and other components...it's not so cut and dry man.

Wet layup is far easier, is SUPER shiny since you bring that up (actually shinier than vacuum bagged parts honestly), and are FAR easier both from a cost, materials, and practice standpoint.

All I can do is give you advice based on what I've done, but the end decision is yours. I'm just trying to give you advice to see that your chance of success is higher.

Here's some wet layup dash stuff I did back in the day for a friend. I laid it up, let it cure, popped it off the glass...done. I don't know why you think you need to sand it?

When it was first done and installed



After about a year in the car. Dude never ended up putting the gauges in like he said





<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by civic.slow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

minimal apperance diffrence at best.that shiny finish is the gel coat

i belive vacumn baged stuff is lighter and stronger becuase the resihn comes out and is actually pressed together.........</TD></TR></TABLE>

The part will be as smooth and shiny as the mold it's made on. Even if you do an overlay, once it's wet sanded and buffed, just the resin and dried carbon will shine. You can do a clear coat or gel coat if you wish, but it's not necessary in order for it to shine.

Vacuum bagged parts are lighter and generally stronger due to more consistent resin content, and compressed curing.

 

Just curious, how would one go about trying to duplicate a full dashboard, but in composites?
It'd be a dash like this:
http://i65.photobucket.com/alb...0.jpg

 

There's quite a few different approaches you could use. The more you work with fiberglass and carbon, the more you learn how to use it and get it to do what you want.

Taking on a project like that would be.....work! You could overlay it, you could remove the dash and do a metal repro, then mold that, you could make a dash from foam and mold that, you could make a dash from foam and overlay it. There's just many ways to do it.

Molding something that complex is going to take complex molds, and definitely not something for an amateur should take on. Both the difficulty and cost would be substantial.

 

I had thoughts to keep it fairly identical to how it looks and is shape wise, so I'd probably think an overlay would be my best choice. I have access to spare dashes, so I don't mind doing what I have to to them to make it work like filling in crevices or smoothing other areas out with some type of fabric (panty hose maybe?)

 

Overlay would definitely be your most straightforward option.

 

nice...

I'm making a carbon intake manifold for our FSAE car... I just finished making the mold tonight.

 

Post pics man....we're all boys here..

 

id love to see someone trying to mold carbon fiber in a trash bag attached to a cars intake. if only scientists knew it was so simple from the beginning.....

 

listen dumbass

first of all a pump is a pump. id doesnt matter what you use.
a car happens to move alot of air, and is a very good air pump.
thats what an engine is, an air pump.

second of all, using trash bags...whats wrong with that? SOME trash bags are made of polyethelene. thats a perfectly appropriate source of material for bagging.

here is an example.

http://volvospeed.com/Mods/vacuum_bagging.html

as to the ******* quote if only scientists knew it were so simple.....who is to say they dont? what makes you think molding carbon fiber is soooo complex you need to spend "x" ammount of dollars to do it???

what scientists are you even talking about anyways????

 

Just stumbled across this. Not sure if it's an overlay (probably is) but I'm sure it helps as motivation:

 

thats pretty sweet.

think how good it would look if they covered up the cluster and put in autometer sport comp gauges.

think that overlay on the dash is done in one piece, or multiple sections?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hootiehoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">listen dumbass</TD></TR></TABLE>

Are you talkin to me with that?

 

no, to the dumbass called "the unknown"

scroll up a bit.

 

ummmm.... Yeah your car is just gonna stall after it runs out of air in 5 seconds of huffing on a garbage bag, kinda like a baby with a grocery bag

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by spAdam &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ummmm.... Yeah your car is just gonna stall after it runs out of air in 5 seconds of huffing on a garbage bag, kinda like a baby with a grocery bag </TD></TR></TABLE>

You do realize that an idling motor is pulling a vacuum right? He doesn't have to put a garbage bag over the intake to suck the air out of the bag...just FYI...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hootiehoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thats pretty sweet.

think how good it would look if they covered up the cluster and put in autometer sport comp gauges.

think that overlay on the dash is done in one piece, or multiple sections?</TD></TR></TABLE>

it looks like its in sections..........hey on the trashbag idea i heard about it before on a DIY site....its a certain brand or type of trashbag right? i belive it said some thing eurathane clear plastic.like you cant grab a black yard bag or your moms glad bag or something