Newbie looking for help.

Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Back

Newbie looking for help.

Author	Message
ab90	a ab90 posted 6 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
a Group: Forum Members Posts: 4, Visits: 22	Hi all, Newbie from the UK here. I have been thinking for a while about making some parts for my car, and how to go about it. I have watched some tutorials on Youtube etc and thought it was about time I gave it a go, so I thought I would sign up here to get some advice from the experts. I hope you can help. I have a 1980's Porsche 911 with a targa roof. I don't use the targa roof, so I was trying to think of possible ways to create a sort of hard top shell from carbon fibre or similar to go over the soft part of the roof. I've included a picture of an example of the roof how it is now. Could anyone recommend a way that I could replicate the shape of this roof to try and make this? Or am I being ridiculous?! My initial thoughts were to maybe lay some sort of plastic sheet over it and fibreglass onto that to give me something to build off to create a pattern and then to make a mould from. My day job is designing injection moulds for turbine blades and other complex things, so I can visualise how I could make a mould for this, and potentially if I can make a good enough pattern I will scan it and get one of the chaps at work to CNC the mould into modelboard, but I am just struggling to figure out how I could make the pattern. Any help would be greatly appreciated, or if I am stupid for even considering this please feel free to tell me that as well! Cheers.
	Reply Like 4
Reply
MarkMK	MarkMK posted 6 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 338, Visits: 2K	Your first consideration looks to be finding a reliable method of covering the material of the roof, so that you can create an initial mould. I'm assuming that you don't want to sacrifice the existing roof, so some sort of covering that will be self-releasing would be ideal It would leave some overlap ridges to deal with later on, but gaffa/duct tape is a quick and easy suggestion and gel coat will release from it without any additional prep work. The resultant mould would be quite rough in terms of it's surface, but it should allow you to make a pretty accurate pattern, in terms of dimensions, that you can then put some work into smoothing to an acceptable finish. You'd likely find it easier to put work into a rough pattern than a rough mould, I think It might be worth giving the temporary mould a couple of coats of gel coat, as this should provide a bit of leeway when it comes to sanding. Just a suggestion, but you might have an alternative product in mind for your initial covering of the roof? Something that will release reliably from gel coat would be best (test it beforehand if unsure) and the less work it will leave you to tidy up later the better
	Reply Like 4