Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Carbon fiber roof - making the mold

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic17110.aspx

By BlackNDecker - 5/16/2015 11:19:51 PM

Greetings all,

I bought a brand new OEM steel roof and plan to make a mold and eventually a carbon fiber roof. 

A little background...My car is a 2007 Honda Civic Si and comes with a heavy sun roof assembly (this comes standard from the factory). I contemplated simply swapping roofs for the OEM "non-sunroof" steel roof. That would save me around 20 lbs...but instead of going that direction I've decided to make a carbon fiber roof and hopefully save 30+ lbs.

Some pictures of my progress...

Made some progress on the roof project. 

Transferred it out to the garage:


The antenna hole will be covered:


And the tabs for the weather seal have to be cut off:


Luckily I have a Dremel for these types of projects:


Made some flanges:


Antenna hole covered (with a fresh coat of wax):


Flanged, waxed, and ready to go...




Unfortunately, it's going to be too humid all weekend to lay the gel coat...so I'll probably have to wait until Monday or Tuesday. fml
By Warren (Staff) - 6/22/2015 9:42:55 AM

I would give that voided area a real good prodding with a rigid tool to see if it caves in. If still in one piece then I would try injecting the gelcoat. You've nothing to loose as if it fails, it will break off on the first use of the mould and you can then just do a conventional gelcoat repair.