Interesting (to me at least) way to create a body from fibreglass

Looking at this video I wonder if it would work just as well over an actual body to build a thin lightweight copy?

I think the dimensions of the fiberglass "overlayed" body would be larger by the thickness of the fiberglass.  Maybe not an issue for a race body and when doing the whole body at once, but wouldn't be great for trying to do just a hood or trunk lid or other individual body part to integrate with an existing car.

My 2 cents as I haven't done anything like this myself.

Seems like at that point you're halfway to making a mold. Not to mention if you want a decent surface finish, it's gonna take a lot of sanding to get the fiberglass texture off since it's not on the mold side

In reply to gixxeropa :

I was thinking the same thing. If I'm going to spend that much time making a model, I'm going to make it the exact perfect shape and pull a set of molds off of it. All he had to do was seal up the foam with exterior house paint and finish sculpting with filler. Hit that with epoxy primer and then lay up your mold.

gixxeropa said:

Seems like at that point you're halfway to making a mold. Not to mention if you want a decent surface finish, it's gonna take a lot of sanding to get the fiberglass texture off since it's not on the mold side

That's the way I had seen it done, fiberglass the outside, spray foam and strategic strips of wood for integrity, then use that as a mold.

I've seen mouldless fiberglass done, it looked... I don't want to say bad but it looked bad.

I saw someone's lemons car built like this. They brought a copart salvage z3 to lemons and Jay told them - next race it better be an amx or it's getting penalty laps to the moon. So they splashed an amx with fiberglass and mounted that to the z3. It was glorious. And they won overall!

I'm not so sure about doing it for a car you want to do more than race with but for that it was perfect. 

Great if you only want one. Lots of work to finish, very little work to pull molds from there. Then you can crash cheap.

dculberson said:

So they splashed an amx with fiberglass and mounted that to the z3. It was glorious. 

That is pretty great.

For anyone who is serious about making body panels, I recommend checking videos from Throttle Stop Garage.  It's a guy in Canada who's been building a 1966 Volvo Amazon, and he's fabricated carbon fiber parts for the whole front clip, doors and trunk lid.  He goes into great detail on making the molds and laying up the panels.  https://www.youtube.com/c/ThrottleStopGarage

Would it be worth it at challenge pricing? Find a car, lay the glass over, install on challenge car? The factory body on a C3 is thick and heavy, just saying...

I always thought of the Trabi approach... use anything cheap and fibrous, anything cheap and resinous.

How expensive are Goodwill bedsheets vs. fiberglass cloth, and would it be good enough for a short time?

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I always thought of the Trabi approach... use anything cheap and fibrous, anything cheap and resinous.

 

How expensive are Goodwill bedsheets vs. fiberglass cloth, and would it be good enough for a short time?

My dad(now a professional surfboard builder) built his first using his mom's old curtains/drapes instead of fiberglass cloth. Not the correct material, but it worked!

"poor man's fiberglass" = canvas cloth (e.g. HF drop cloth) + Titebond III glue

I copied a bunch of info about it from some forum or something somewhere.  I would have sworn it was GRM, but I cannot find it now.

Another (old) thread about making fiberglass copies of body panels:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/another-mold-question/90353/page1/

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I always thought of the Trabi approach... use anything cheap and fibrous, anything cheap and resinous.

 

How expensive are Goodwill bedsheets vs. fiberglass cloth, and would it be good enough for a short time?

My Dart had a rust hole in the floor pan patched with a flannel rag and cheap epoxy. It's stayed in for over 25 years now.

I had no idea this was all possible. If I didn't have a full time family I would be full time mocking up unicorn powerwheels cars for my nephews and friends' kids