It is a 'pod' that holds 2 90mm hella lights and a turn signal. current one is painted fiberglass. heavily built and I want a light carbon one showing the twill... my unanswered questions so far
- It has negative features because of the headlight tubes requiring a two part or more mold, or what I'm testing now, shore 60A for the headlight tubes and one piece fiberglass for the rest. or shore 60A silicone for the whole part with fiber backing for reinforcement?
- how to get a consistent weave pattern where the tubes transition to the overall body of the part. either have the same fabric piece lay into the tubes and have seams hopefully hidden? or have seams where the tubes join the main body of the part?
- infusion is the method i am gonna try to use. where should the resin feed line(s) and vacuum line(s) be located?

Matthieu Libeert
Founder MAT2 Composites X Sports
website: www.mat2composites.com

Do you have photos from different angles? To me it looks like you could do it in a two piece mould, if you "cut off" the outer recess on the left side with the second mould piece and demould the main piece to the right. I would definitely advice not to use silicone mould pieces in the way you intend to do. You will get bad surfaces at the junction between the materials, and the cicles for the lamps will definitively not end up perfectly round.

It's hard to see but if the circle recesses are actually uniform in shape (or close to it) then you could use Profinish cloth on them and make a feature out of it.  That way you don't have to precisely match the weave with the outer curvier shape. You would be able to easily draw a paper template for each recess to use to cut the Profinish fabric.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Well I'm back. I ended up using shore 60A silicone for the headlight and turn signal tubes, and made a silicone vac bag. I set it up so I could do vacuum infusion but elected to do wet layup for the first time (I've never done vac infusion before but have all the required tools and material on hand). It has some flaws on it (a few wrinkles in the back of the tubes, a small resin pool on the surface) but is otherwise pretty good looking I think. Here are some pics of the mold and part. Let me know what you think. I'm new and this was by far the most challenging part I've made so far.

About to make vacuum bag out of silicone

Silicone vacuum bag

Making the first part. I made the tubes separately, then trimmed and placed them back on the silicone and in the mold. 

Fresh out of the mold

Post duratec sunshield spraying and wet sanding (the lip around the part is unfinished but it is not seen once installed)

That looks amazing. One question I have is when you made the silicon bag did you use anything like sheet wax to account for the laminate thickness as your bag will be made to the mould size causing it to pinch some of the material.
This could account for some of the issues on the radii