I think I want to take a shot at fiberglassing some pods for my components but I have no idea where to start. First off,how hard is it for someone with no experience at all? Second,what all will I need? Do they sell kits or something at Home Depot or similair places? Can someone post some links to what Ill need or make a list for what ill need please?
the easiest way to glass is to use a form of some kind. Foam works well. HD sells the resin and fiber mat and fiber cloth. I like the cloth because its easier to work larger pieces with. However, the mat is good for strengh and build up areas. 1. Make some sort of mold, from wood, ect. 2. cover with cloth/mat 3. wet with resin/repeat/repeat 4. Sand-sand-sand-sand.
About how much should I expect to spend on materials for doing a simple component pod for both doors? And what exactly will I need? Any reccomended brands?
It's all pretty much the same. I recommend the loose fiberglass mat because once you sand it, it holds its shape and appearance better. it won't peel either. Also, to make your shape for the pod, make a skelaton with wooden slats and circles for the speaker hole. and drape it with fleece or other thin cloth and staple it. This will allow you to "preview" your form before draping mat and resin.
You mount the cutout with small pieces of wood, like 1" x 1" x depth, and use 3-4 of those, whatever will fit. You'll want to angle them.
You need a back-board (particle-board, dunno if that's a good suggestion). Maybe .5 or .75" MDF.... .5 seems better than particle-board lol.
Mount the cut-out and the cut-outs' onto the backboard with screws/glue, and pre-drill so those 1 x 1's don't crack.
Lay down strips of fiberglass coated in the resin, wait for it to harden. Do it again. and again. and again until it's thick. Try to shoot for the proper air-space.
Sand. Sand. Sand. Sand. Sand. Sand. Sand. Then sand some more.
Then paint it.
You'll need: fiberglass saw that cuts angles screws + pre-drill resin wood - mounting cut-out and 1 x 1 x depth (3-4)/mounts, and backboard beer time proper air space paint sander & paper 24 hours beer
Yea if you like to do things yourself I would say you should do it.
A friend of mine got a ID10 for his RSX and he didn't want a big MDF enclosure in his trunk so we decided to learn how to fiberglass . I had never touched the stuff in my life before then and neither had he. We looked up some info online. This is the guide we vaguely followed: http://forums.clubrsx.com/showthread.php?t=449041
Anyway it turned out to be a pretty fun little project. Unfortunately we ended up making the box WAY too big and we went back recently to seal up half the box by filling it will "great stuff" and doing a couple of layers of glass over it.
Heres some pix of our project:
(sorry I couldn't find some better ones, but u get the jist from these) Not too shabby for 3 dudes that have never used fiberglass in their lives)
As for materials, id suggest not using plastic cups to mix the resin and hardener like we did, it actually ate though the cups so each time we mixed a batch we were laying strips at light speed, which caused us to look over some bubbles.
For pods a single gallon from home depot should be more than enough Off the top of my head this is what my supply list would look like: 1 gallon of resin ($20~$30) fiberglass mat/cloth (we alternated the layers, ~$20) brushes (<$10) plastic tarp (<$10) wooden dowels (<$5) some 1/2" mdf (~10$) fleece (<$10) bondo (<$10) EDIT: sandpaper (<$10)
We picked up the fleece from a fabric store, it was actually kinda hard to find. You can use the extra wooden dowels as disposable mixing sticks for the resin.
