Fabe

Ladies and gentlemen, I have begun my quest through the wonderful world of fiberglass. That said, my goal is to build a sub box that will house 2 10" subs in the rear of the car, on the floor. One thing to note is this is my first adventure with fiberglass so to many of you it will look like this drawing of a house: http://www.phps.vic.edu.au/childwork...res/house2.gif

Anyway, let me take everyone through my adventures (deleted link, but pm me for the pics)

As seen in pics 3, 4 and 5, the left, right and center of the battlefield are shown with slicing of the carpet so that I could easily remove where the box is to go. Yes, the car is dirty, perhaps because it has not been washed in 12 years , but that is just speculation.

After slicing the carpet, I then proceeded at removing the carpet (pic 11). Then I slapped in some wood to form the walls of the box, where there was no other wall in place and finally masking taped the bottom of the car. Next, I used "fiberglass mold release" so the box could be removed after it was set since I commute 1 1/2 - 3 hrs a day in the car so the smell wouldn't kill me (pic 12). Why quotations for fiberglass mold release?...well ahhh...ummm...because I have Vaseline lying around and was too cheap to use my KY on the box so I used vaseline instead.

But we digress, so pic 13 and 14 show the beginning of the box after having been left to set overnight.

Time taken:

Carpet cutting and positioning -- 1 hour
Wood form and arrangement ---- 2 hours
Tape, vaseline, expanding foam - 1 hour
First fiberglassing--------------- 1 hour

What have I learned today?

1) Masking tape is fine to use to protect car from resin but a layer of duct tape on top would prevent "mold release" from seeping on the floor of the car.
2) Vaseline = cheap fiberglass mold release.
3) Even a fitted pharmaceutical mask won't protect you from the beautiful resin fragrance while working.
4) If you're going to play around with resin for a bit use two gloves per hand, if not, one is fine.
5) Most important, to prevent waking up on the floor of your garage with a pungent resin aroma surrounding you, do not start your fiberglass workings at 10:30pm, like I did.

The floor is yours guys...I'll add more pics as I go.

[ June 26, 2004, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Fabe ]

Tha-Game

i just layed duct tape then glassed over that, didnt need any vaseline or other "lube"

hell i barely used any kinda wood framing on my amp racks (obviously doesnt need to be uber strong to hold 2 5lb amps while basically resting on wheelwells tho)

Beater Truck

iTrader: (1)

did the fiberglass and or resin stick to the ducttape or did it get glued to the final product?

Herooftheday

iTrader: (1)

i jes used tin foil and tape when i made my box. most of the foil peeled off and what didnt i couldnt care less, it wasnt showing.

Beater Truck

iTrader: (1)

well i tried a sample piece with just duct tape and then glass and resin. and i was surprised on how well the finished product looked. but there is a huge difference when u use cheap and expensive tape. so i also went with the foil route and i like that way alot better

Just Joking

Method that works best for me.
-Mask of the area to be glassed,
-Use spray glue to stick a layer of tin foil to the masking tape.
-When the glass has set, you can separate the mold from the base.
I have pics on my sound domain site of this being done.

Fabe

Hey guys, thanks for the replies; the reason I tried masking and vaseline is because someone recommended it... was about to use just aluminum foil but my friend said it might tear easily and leak. [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

Anyways, I added pics #50, 51 and 52 (pm me for the pics) , nothing much, just removed the box from the car, which was really in there snug. I'm lucky it even came out though! I'll post more later...I welcome any comments.

[ June 26, 2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Fabe ]

Tha-Game

did the fiberglass and or resin stick to the ducttape or did it get glued to the final product? </font>[/QUOTE]the only problem i had gettin it out was one side i coulda let it set another hour or 2 but i was impatient and it was still tacky on the underside had i waited it would have came off easier, other then that just straight ducttape worked fine on the other half of the base

Fabe

So I've had a few more hours to work on the box in the past two weeks and it's all summarized here:

Pic of half finished box

Basically what I did was add strips of MDF that the top lid will sit on and made them all flush. I added another fiberglass coating and made the box airtight. Next there was making the cutout rings that fit into the box where the sub is screwed in. Lastly, the lid of the box was fashioned.

So far I've done a preliminary tryout, outside of the car and it sounds fine with polyfill inside...What's left is some siliconing, cutting and carpeting.

[ June 28, 2004, 08:26 AM: Message edited by: Fabe ]