Vehicle Body

Next, use cardboard to create a surface to which you can affix the foam for the mold.

After the cardboard is in place, begin to place the foam. Be sure to leave enough thickness so that there will be enough material to remove to get the desired shape.

Once the foam is in place, let the artists have at it. This is a good time to wander off to get a sandwich or something.

Use some foil 200mph tape to cover up any seams between the foam blocks. Move the mold to a well ventilated area, and lay out drop cloth material to protect the floor. Also note that all exposed chassis members needs to be coated with wax to protect them from the resin. If that step is omitted, it will be impossible to take the final part off of the chassis.

Be careful what type of foam you use. Some kinds of foam tend to dissolve when they come in contact with the fiberglass resin. This will adversely affect the quality of the final piece.

To protect the resin soluble foams, large sections of the mold needed to be covered with more foil tape. Note the large blue metal plates. Those plates are waxed and used to separate the side sections from the nose section, allowing the body to be cast in three separate pieces, and then easily and cleanly separated by simply pulling out the blue dividers.

Trying to fight gravity is a losing battle. It is often best to rotate the mold so that gravity assists in holding the glass in place.

After the final side has set up, right the chassis and leave it to cure for a while. Overnight is probably a good idea, unless you are very confident that you have gotten your ratios of resin to hardener correct. Once the parts are done, they can be removed from the mold. Be aware that the mold will be destroyed in the process, so you only get one shot at this whole thing before you have to start over from scratch.

After the three body pieces are pulled out of the mold, they will require body work before painting. The degree of body work required will depend on the the quality of the parts, which will in turn depend on the quality of the mold.

I welcome your questions, comments, and concerns.