Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[charliekwin]

At least I'm mostly just in it for time and effort right now.  But if I end up flocking the whole thing (a possibility, for sure) I'm gonna be rather annoyed with myself for doing all the extra work!

[ksechler]

I think you are going to have a very difficult time getting a decent finish just laying the fiberglass up like that.  Have you considered getting a vacuum pump?  Back in my RC model days we would use big plastic bags and a vacuum pump to suck the wing skins down to the core while the epoxy cured.  You might be able to do something similar here.  

[charliekwin]

"Hmm, I guess this is why they use vacuum bags during fiberglass layup" -- that was my thought on Sunday afternoon when I was working on it.  

Smaller sheets of cloth did go on quite a bit better, so I think I can get away with it (that's fortunate, since it doesn't look like regular consumer vacuum storage bags are quite large enough).  It certainly isn't going to be pretty, though.

[Zed Head]

Most polyester/glass systems are designed to be laid down on a solid substrate, that you can really put some force on to, like a mold or surfboard.  There is a whole variety of rollers and spatula-type tools for pressing the thick resin in to the glass fibers.  Even with a vacuum bag there is lots of pressing and squeezing on top of the bag material to move the resin around.

Sometimes, what is called a "bag" is actually a plastic sheet with putty around the edges to form a seal.  A vacuum tube is sealed in at an edge to pull the air out.  You also need a catch jar or can to separate resin that gets sucked in to the tube from air that goes through the pump.  There's some tricks and art involved. The main reason for the bag is to keep the glass mat from lifting up from the mold surface.

Something like this might be a good material for what you're doing.  It's intermediate between the tough resin/mat that you're using and brittle body filler.  http://bondo.com/bondo-hair-long-strand-fiberglass-reinforced-filler-762.html#do8AAOJHRDtQQCJK.97  Body filler uses inorganic fillers, but these long fibers provide real strength.

This looks interesting too - http://bondo.com/bondo-self-adhesive-patch-932.html#740gOEJz8Mh1JlOK.97

And, the solvent-like material in the polyester resin is styrene.  It's like toluene in its solvent powers.  Which would be about like gasoline.

Did not intend to write all of that....

[grannyknot]

Doesn't he vacuum bag stick to the surface or do you just sand through it afterwards?

[charliekwin]

I've used Duraglass (another fiber-impregnated filler) before with good results, but have only used it on non-flexible surfaces.  Depending on how much filling I have to do -- hopefully not much -- I wonder if I can get away with using that stuff instead of a special flexible filler.  At least I don't need to worry about having a *perfect* surface.

Grannyknot: resin won't stick to plastic; the bag would just peel off.

[charliekwin]

It's been slow going the past couple weeks.  Seems like life keeps getting in the way.  At least he fiberglass part of this project is basically over with now.  Using smaller pieces, though not as pretty, made for better results.  I also realized that I've never smoked a cigarette in my life and have no plans on starting, so there's no sense in keeping the lighter.

Got the whole thing covered with cloth and at this point, it's what I would generously call a hot mess.

Trimmed everything down and marked all the voids and other areas that needed to be re-glassed.  Fixed them all up, and got to sanding.

Here's what it looks like this evening.  Plenty of work left to do...

[charliekwin]

So I've been sanding.  Lots of sanding.  I smartly went and bought a palm sander from HF that's been pretty effective, and then I sanded with that.  Then sanded some more.

But it's starting to get close.  I brushed on a thin layer of resin to even out the surface a bit and it's looking not bad.  Well, back to go sand some more.

[grannyknot]

Too bad there isn't a self leveling agent you can add to the resin, are you going to use the SEM Landau black spray as your final finish?  It looks really good.

[charliekwin]

Even without a leveling agent, it smoothed out pretty well; at least enough where I think I can avoid having to use much (if any) filler.  For the final finish, I'm going to contact a couple local vinyl wrappers to see if they'll wrap it and how much it'll cost.  If that doesn't work, I'm thinking about either flocking the whole thing or doing a combination where I flock the gauge section and cover the rest in vinyl.

[charliekwin]

Not dead, but have been pretty busy with work, family, other projects (you know what's not fun?  Replacing the AC compressor in a G35!), and just haven't had time to do much on the car.  Not that a bunch of pictures of a dashboard being sanded are terribly interesting

And that's mainly what's been going on.  A week or two ago I finally had it in good enough shape to start (overly, heavily) applying filler, which just means more sanding.  It's getting pretty close now but hard to see some of the contours and details so I sprayed on a light coat of some rattle can primer to get a better look.  There's some blemishes to fix and some shaping to do, but I'm feeling good about the progress.  I'll have a week off after Christmas and maybe can get it finished by then.

[Captain Obvious]

Dash continues to look good. Buttload of work, but looks good!

So how does the weight of the dash compare to the original? Noticeable increase?