Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Making a mould from Campervan Headliner

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic902.aspx

By Skytiger - 2/29/2012 11:38:51 PM

Here is a picture of my headliner in my Baywindow campervan. Ignore the grining idiot thats meWink

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/2b1405ee-605a-4e53-b839-2f36.jpg

So my thinking is to remove from campervan, it's going to be quite flexible when I remove it so some sort of frame would need to be made for it to hold it rigid.  It is material surface so I need to cover it in something so the mold doesn't stick to it.  Suggestions on materials to use for this and also what to use to make the mold.

I realise that what I put on it won't give me a perfect surface but I would need to take a part from the mould early on and modify it(materials to use for modifictions?ie.Foam/GRP) as I want to put speakers in it, nothing huge just 10cm speakers as I don't like them in the doors.  Also to remove the indents for the handles, I don't use them anyway.  I have a pop top fited aswell this has a wooden frame that goes around the roof you can see it in the top right corner of my picture I would like to blend it into the headliner for better asthetics. Once I had done that and got it shiny and glossy then make another mould from my modified headliner.

This would be the mould to take my final modified headliner part from.

Is this the right way to go about it,? Did any of this make sense? It is attached through holes with plastic bungs originally ideas on hidden fixings for these as the front is held on with the sunvisors which are screwed.
By Skytiger - 3/1/2012 9:48:12 PM

Thanks Joe and Matt,


Matt (Staff) (01/03/2012)
Making a mould of the pattern (the original) and then pulling a quick part in order to modify it and then make a mould and then make your final part is more work than neccessary and unless you're using a zero or nearly zero shrink system (i.e. not regular polyester/fibreglass) then you're just inviting the trouble as the 3-times-around part starts to pull away in shape from the original. If you sure-up the pattern you should be able to make all your modifications to that and then finish it ready to pull your final mould.


The reason I was doing this was to keep the original headliner, but it makes more sense as you both say to use the original.

The headliner is reasonably rigid I'm sure a bit of sure-up should do the trick.

My campervan or Phileas as we like to call him because it takes 80 days to get anywhereBigGrin is going in a week on Monday to get the lower half painted Viper Green the new VW Scirocco colour.  It is going to take two weeks so the plan is to take the headliner out and work on it while it's away.