Weird fiberglass panel issue


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raygun
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I'm getting ready to make a mold from the hood of my 2011 Corvette. When I bought the car in April, it had a weird matte vinyl wrap on the hood. When I removed said wrap (ugh), I found an odd grid of what I thought, at the time, were scratches.
Since I've finally found time to get started on the planned carbon hood with some heat extraction, I took a closer look at the hood. These don't really look like scratches so much as CSM. They also line up with the reinforcement on the bottom of the panel.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what could possibly cause this. I posted a question on one of the Facebook groups. It turns out that a lot of Corvette owners have this issue, in the pattern and same places on the hood. Someone suggested that it may be related to heat from storing the car in direct sunlight. That strikes me as weird.




And on someone else's car:

I love the car, but... lovely GM quality strikes again.
Any ideas what could cause this? Also, I'm worried that buffing and preparing the surface may just make it worse. I'd appreciate any advice y'all might have  as to cause and possible solutions. I'd really like to clean this up before making a mold.

Edited 4 Years Ago by raygun
Warren (Staff)
Warren (Staff)
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Sounds like print through.  Thin gelcoat maybe, not enough tissue or thin laminate before the thicker chopped strand mat.  Sometimes curing issues can make it worse - eg demoulding too soon.  Could easily be possible in an OEM manufacturing system if someone was not too hot on the QC to end up demoulding like that.  Also heat cycling of a resin that isn't quite post cured enough.

You may end up having to skim the surface in something to smooth it out if its really bad, although if you make the mould with a thick gel, then you should have some sanding/polishing room to correct it.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant
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