for my first of many--
looks like this one

ordered some materials friday for my project.
got tooling gelcoat and mold release coming.

CarbonFiberCreations

so as i am working out what i need , i am trying different ways to keep costs down. buy tooling gel coat or just polyester and then some fumed silica
and make my own thixotropic mix.
finally i jus said screw it and went with a quart of tooling gel coat. KISS --Keep It Simple Stupid
LOL
yeah i did that.
so i have pva and some mold release wax and my gelcoat coming. next order will be a few more products until i have all i need to go full on with my spoiler
project.
i think i re learned a lesson-- dont try and be cheap. these are top quality materials that give top quality performance. plan thoroughly and plan for success.
i have been working on how to mold this for about a year and a half. the Easycomposites videos have helped me wrap my brain around how i need to do this. and lots of youtube searching too. i have in the past made molds for fiberglass/SMC repairs in my job, but never anything like this. i am confident this is in my existing skillset, and i should be fine. i feel for you guys who are doing this and come from different backgrounds that dont involve auto repairs
or manufacturing etc that would expose you to the techniques. this is intimidating for me and i have some experience with some similar products to at least fall back on. and i embrace adhesives and all new technology as i discover it. again, all of that for me is job related. for you guys who are IT people, teachers,students and other professions....good luck and i promise to share anything i can that may be helpful as i too learn. as my Fraud Analyst job training showed me, "each one  teach one".

CarbonFiberCreations

Good luck - I'm one of those 'others' you talk about that dont have any day-job experience to go by

I'm a proper tight ass!  If its of use I just use regular glass to make moulds.  I double gel and lay it up a layer at a time waiting for it to cure between each layer (well, tack off).  My thought with this is that it is managing the exotherm that is key.  Regular resin will get hot if cured in a thick laminate, cure and then shrink as it cools.  The tooling resin doesn't do this.  By keeping it cool during the cure (by laying up a layer at a time) you dont get the shrink.  I have moulds that I made years ago where the original plug still drops in.  These have been fairly large moulds too.

....and I run the polisher over it with some G3 for that nice glossy finish prior to applying mould release.

Hi, good look with the project and here is a bit of advice if it's needed.

i went down the road of polyester moulds on my first attempt, didn't take too much notice on the temps as it was curing having laid up the gelcoat then 3 layers of csm, as it was done at work after hours and i was home while it was curing lol, i did notice though that after the last 3 layers were added and cured it had shrunk a little, probably not too much to worry about but it bothered me so next was epoxy.

no gelcoat i could find in epoxy so it was resin and calcium carbonate to make the gelcoat, i love epoxy its great! but don't do what i did and add the 'thickener' after the activator as its goes off soon after its mixed lol (its all learning) so next was epoxy again with talc, same effect as calcium carbonate (its probably the same stuff!) weigh off the resin mix add in the talc to desired thickness then add required activator, worked great

i found i could lay up the gelcoat add a light second coat when ready then add the woven cloth (no csm) and just mix up resin when the last lot was tacky and add more, layer after layer

a little tip with epoxy, don't rub your nose when you have a little on your hand! it really burns on the inside off your nose... trust me lol

oh and i have two of these cars, and both have not been damaged in the rear. i am confident that the rear is level and square so i can mount my spoiler and then make my shell and all that fun stuff. my spoiler is not perfect, so i expect to have to repair /re work my mold to fix some imperfections. i *should* be able to get a good mold on it and go like mad from there.

scott

CarbonFiberCreations