Because I haven't updated much good stuff lately, I'd thought I'd quickly post some photos taken off my phone. Lots of photos on the main camera so full explanations later.
Guard moulding - 90% prep, 10% actually doing. I'm making multi-piece moulds. Guard is mounted on the RC for fibreglassing to ensure minimal warping of the mould. If I did it on a workbench, then the fear is the guard would flex and not be in a natural mounting position. Alternatively was to copy the mounting points and make a jig so I could make the mould in the horizontal position, but I just sucked it up and got on with the job with the guard on the car.
Note the flanges. Multiple pieces, multiple curvatures. Took a long long time to measure and cut to fit/curve. Plastic is hot glued to the rear of the edge on to tape. While it is easy to force a curve with the corflute plastic signboard, the aim was to reduce the tension in the curve as it may release during gelcoat/fibreglass. Put pressure on it and the hot glue/board might have popped off mid glassing.
Also needed to think about how the multi-piece mould would assemble together. Issues with mechanical lock and not being able to release once the mould and copy is made.
And finally, I needed to push this job through as a) panel beater is waiting so they can paint a bunch of parts all at once, b) cracks were appearing in the body filler (grr). Where the car is placed is facing the garage door. The door becomes very hot as it is West facing and captures the afternoon sun and the subsequent handling of the guards while building the flanges and heat made the guards very fragile. With the cracks appearing, I determined that this was a one shot job, therefore I had to make the moulds on the first hit. There will be no going back to try again later. All prep work was done with this in mind.
Once the flanges are glued to the guard, the next step is sealing the flange to the guard. I used modelling clay to create a seal. Note, every edge needs to be done and the tidier you do it, the better the end result. Probably removed fingerprint on index finger as I smoothed out the clay transition between the guard edge and the flange. I also used a wooden coffee stirrer stick to make initial transition and pack the clay into tight spots.
5-6 layers of release wax applied, then 3-4 light coats of PVA release agent. Location domes added to the flanges on the multi piece flanges.
A thick layer of tooling gelcoat applied. Main issue I had here was that I didn't mix the gelcoat thoroughly enough. When I applied the polyester resin later, there were some slight wrinkles in the gelcoat as the resin catalysed the non-cured gelcoat. Majority of the shape was good, so I will fix up the bad spots later.
Messy fun time. I use 450gm chopped strand matt and I sometimes pull a piece into two halves to create 225gm matt layers for hard curves and initial lay up.
Each guard would get it's own resin session which takes just over an hour. That means applying the resin and glass, and continually pushing the fibreglass down for minimal air bubbles errant glass strands. Took about 3 hours total for both guards e.g pour/mix resin, lay glass, continue surface prep until brush turns cloggy. Takes about 1.5L of resin to do a couple of layers of fibreglass. Pre cutting helped a lot with a large 450gm piece laid on the cured gelcoat and cut in specific areas to reduce clumping on curves or edges (hence why there are random strands on the gelcoat). Cured gelcoat was lightly scuffed with 80grit to ensure adhesion layer.
No shots of layup in between glass sessions on the phone so will have to wait till I get of the main camera. Did two sessions per side with about 5-6 layers of matt, then I cut up some wood, added relief slots to curve the wood and hot glued to the cured resin for reinforcement.
Got to the point where I was finished enough to remove the protective covering over engine and door openings. Drove the RC out of the garage and cleaned up after myself and with some help, put the doors back on. Drop clothes under the guards worked a treat, though there were a lot of loose strands to clean up.
As you can see, the guards have reinforcement in them to minimise warping once released from the guard itself. The hot glue lifted in places, so I'll need to reinforce the wood with more resin and glass. So far, this has taken around 10L of resin. Started removing the temp flanges and moulds are starting to look good. Minor wrinkling of the gelcoat in certain places, but not a bigger and can be repaired.