Making plastic or fiberglass body panels at home?

[Realsquash]

In my web-wheeling adventures I haven't read much about making your own body panels. I'm talking about front fenders, faux bedsides, and maybe hoods. I'm building a late-model (1994) S10 (if you can call it that) with mog 406's, big block, and whatnot. The only parts that are S10 is the cab because I like to have a little shelter if I feel the need in the rain/snow. I would like to keep the S10 look and it would be great to have fenders and bedsides that I could just put right on, made to fit my application perfectly.

My options seem to be to create a vacuum-forming setup or to make them from fiberglass. The vacuum-forming idea seems interesting and it would probably require the least amount of work with immediately usable results, save for trimming the edges.

Ideas?

Andy

[ZukIzzy]

In my web-wheeling adventures I haven't read much about making your own body panels. I'm talking about front fenders, faux bedsides, and maybe hoods. I'm building a late-model (1994) S10 (if you can call it that) with mog 406's, big block, and whatnot. The only parts that are S10 is the cab because I like to have a little shelter if I feel the need in the rain/snow. I would like to keep the S10 look and it would be great to have fenders and bedsides that I could just put right on, made to fit my application perfectly.

My options seem to be to create a vacuum-forming setup or to make them from fiberglass. The vacuum-forming idea seems interesting and it would probably require the least amount of work with immediately usable results, save for trimming the edges.

Ideas?

Andy

Vacume forming would be the most amount of work and you will make a lot of bad parts before you figure it out.

Fiberglass is easy to do if you use the foam/glass method. Use polyurethane foam to get the shape you want. Glass it with a heavy layer, sand and bondo to get the shape refined like you want. Add another layer of glass or 2 then a final sand. Coat your new PLUG with Gelcoat and you can then pull a mould off of that using PVA release agent or a few coats of turtle wax will work but not as well. Once you have your mould you can make all the parts you want using several different types of glass and resin depending on what works for you.

It souds like a lot of work but you will have to make the same Mould and Plug for vacume forming plus and oven and some large sheets of Plexy which can ad up$$$.

You can start with the stock fenders and just glue foam to them for the first plug to get the shape you want, or glue blocks of foam to the area you want to cover and start sanding off everything that does not look like an S-10.

for 1 off parts just make the shape in foam glass like you would a plug then sand all the foam out of the plug and you are done. a wire wheel on a drill will eat a lot of foam fast.

This is a nut shell and there is a lot to learn before you master it lots of which you just have to do for it to make sence.

good luck
wayne

[PTSchram]

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