Update by Tim Suddard to the
Elva Mk VI project car
Oct 1, 2024
|
Elva,
Restoration,
Fiberglass,
Elva Mk VI
Photography by Tim Suddard
We needed to widen our Elva’s original fiberglass seat an inch to fit our driver.
[How to rebuild and widen a fiberglass seat]
It was now time to smooth out and complete this seat. We would level it out and add some fiberglass layers to strengthen it and make our widening project look a bit more professional.
Thankfully, the inside of the seat would be covered with fabric while the outside–pretty much the back of the seat–would be left in raw fiberglass as originally constructed. We may paint the raw fiberglass even though it’s mostly hidden once installed.
We would soon need to use the seat for a mold, so we needed it to be perfect.
First, we sanded down any rough and uneven spots and then added small fiberglass patches as necessary to get the seat as straight and level as we could.
[Video: A step-by-step guide on how to repair fiberglass]
Unlike gelcoat, fiberglass is relatively easy to sand. A vibration-style sander will make less of a mess, but an air sander or grinder will work much more quickly.
Remember, though, fiberglass dust is evil stuff. You do not want it on your skin, in your mouth or in your eyes.
Once we got our seat finished up, we let it harden. Soon it would also be used as the mold for our passenger seat as we did not get the correct one with the car.
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