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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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Hey all, Having recently started my own composites business, I found myself doing a large amount of work for a local workshop/race support team here that deal with all-out track cars (and people with entirely too much money). The workshop have got so much work for me to do that I don't really have time to do anything else at the moment, but over the last month or so my main project has been the Lotus Exige that they have. Long term, the customer wants to build the entire thing barring the chassis from carbon fibre. Fortunately my job is made easier given the car is basically a block of aluminium for a chassis and the rest is fibreglass bolted on, so everything is designed to work with composites. The first part I made for them was a simple dash mount for the Motec C185 digital dash, which I had to design and build from scratch: |
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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The next part I built was the roof panel. This was a pretty major project, given the original needed some repairs and the customer wanted some pretty extensive modification. Basically the guy is a giant who chose to drive the smallest car he could find, so his head touched the roof while driving which is obviously a safety concern, so I had to find some head room. The car also has an aftermarket windscreen which was smaller than the original, so there was a 1.5" gap between the roof and the windscreen; no good for aero or aesthetics. So I needed to mould a lip onto the roof that brought it down to sit under the windscreen seal. And finally, the original fibreglass roof weighs ~16kg and was the most rickety OEM panel I have ever seen which, given the power output of the car, caused it to fly off the car numerous times at the track. This was the original how it was given to me:  The damage I needed to fix:  Upon getting the grinder out, the damage was more extensive than it first appeared:
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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I then had to remove the inner lining, a prick of a job if there ever was one: |
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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Once that was done, I got into the front lip section: |
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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Layup was quite enjoyable compared to some of the smaller parts I've done. My schedule was 2 layers 200g carbon fibre, 3mm Soric XF, 1 layer 200g carbon/kevlar hybrid. In hindsight this was a lot of overkill and perhaps made the final product heavier then it could have been, but I used 2 layers of carbon because I didn't want the Soric to show through, and unfortunately 3mm is the thinnest core I can get locally. If I were to do it again (which I may do, because the owner treats these things like hats), I would probably even skip the core and just do 1 layer of 660g carbon and 1 layer of carbon/kevlar.  Fully laid up. You can see the split section for the undercut at the front here:  For the inner skin, I did 1 layer of 200g carbon and 1 layer of 660g carbon, with an extra layer of 660g carbon in each of the mounting point locations. Again in hindsight this was heavier than it needed to be, and in future I would just do 1 layer of 200g carbon with some pieces of 660g in the mounting locations. Both skins fully laid up and bagged. I double bagged both pieces to ensure my vacuum integrity: |
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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Fresh out of the mould, no cleaning up yet: |
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TomDesign
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that is one very great amount of job and skills involved.
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brainfart
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Nice. I'd love to see how the molds and the parts come together, and how you did the third little mold in the front.
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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The little split section on the top skin was very simple, same as the last idea you posted in my other thread:   https://fbcdn-photos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-0/10616138_10152203618432541_7446677187153445506_n.jpg">
This section was bolted back on before laying up, and due to the shape of the undercut and to avoid any issues with bridging or pulling the weave, I laid up the small section before bolting it back on. Did this by applying strips of Airtech Airhold to the carbon fibre so I could cut it to shape without fraying. Once it was laid down, I noted with a marker which direction the weaves were going. Then when I laid the first layer for the rest of the top skin, I simply matched the weave direction and then I could snip it to allow me to push it into that undercut without pulling the weaves, whilst hiding the cut edges behind the split section. This all worked quite well, the fabric itself is seamless at the split, you can't tell that it isn't one piece. Unfortunately there wasn't enough resin in the piece to allow me to polish out the visible bump at the joins without rubbing through to the carbon fibre, so that is still visible. If the roof were being clear coated, those split lines could be polished out and one would never know.
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.5K,
Visits: 28K
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Custom switch panel:    Straight out of the mould, both parts bonded together: |
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