So.. Back at it..

The roof was far from perfect from the painter. I didn´t feel like bring it back for him to do it all over.. But I guess it depends on how picky you are. My thought was that I can wet sand it and polish it to fix the worst parts..

I wet sanded it lightly with 2000grit. I´d hate to be to hard on it and ruin it so I was a bit careful. I will probely do it again on the mold surfice if I find it necissery. Wi´ll see how it looks.. As of now I can see sanding marks that I did with a orbit sander and 240 grit before the painter got it..



I polished it and waxed it and then I discovered that it is not suposed to be wax under easy lease so I cleand the plug with acetone 2 times.
I added 7 coats of easy lease with 20 min between each coat or more. The surfice looked a bit "clowdy" or greasy like this after the easy lease... Is that normal? The surfice is dry though.


I let it sit for 12 hours or so and after that I will add 2 coats of wax.
I have a small pice I can test some gelcoat on to see if everything works.

I also made a  oven of 100mm isolation bords. I had a 2000 W air heater laying around that hade a mecanical bimetal thermostat that was easy to manipulate for a higher heat range.. I also had to bypass the heat protaction. During testing it held 82-87 deg Celsius and that is god enough I think.I used a 4 chanel type k thermocouple digital temp gauge I bought from Ebay a long time ago to look for uneven exhaust temps on a 4 cyl engine. I only used one chanel high in the oven but will add one more just beside the actual thermostat controling the heater and see if it differs.. I think it will be pretty even temps because of the fan.  I will start the post curing at 60 deg and work my way up to 90 deg for the unimold  and later on for the finished parts.Inside dimensions are about 2000cm deep, 115cm wide and 55cm high. I googled abit and found other doing abit more serius bulds.. I don´t have room for a oven of this size so it will be taken down later so I tryed keeping it simple. I saw someone is using a ebay router speed controler for adjusting the heat and that is a good ide i guess. Since I have taken out the safty fetures of the heater fan I will not leave it alone though. i´d hate to burn down my house..

The roof plug is painted.. I picked it up all dusty and stuff from the painter and when I dust it of at home I can see some of the body filler as "ilands" so I guess they didn´t use this thick sandable primer I was just assuming.. (don´t know it in English) I think it will be ok if I wetsand and polish both the roof plug and the mold.. I will try to get a picture of it but it will be hard to get a picture of it I bet..



One thing.. If I use polish on the roof plug what do I use to clean it off before I use Easy lease? I don´t think I bought the cleaner.. I will check but I don´t think I did.. Any suggestions?

I installed my heating fan in the workshop roof today anyway,,



I will not be able to do any work in 4 weeks so It will take a while before I can start making the mold.. Can´t wait though.

Thanks for the tip mate.. 
 Maybe I can use a corner on a flange to test on or something.. But I will try call the paint shop today and see if they already have painted it or not and if they can paint a scrap pice for me..

All looking good mate.

To avoid heart ache, I would recommend getting them to spray a small piece of scrap metal with the same paint they are using on your roof so that you can do a test to see if the paint is compatible with the moulding materials you are using. Dont assume that just because it is 2k that it will be ok, there are more 2k's that arent compatible than ones that are. Always do a test, and if in doubt - stick to using PVA release agent.

Got a call from the paint shop. The got some questions and I got a price for the paint job at 1500 Swedish crowns which is about 140 euros or 140 brittish pounds. It would be done around the weekend.. 

It has been a while.. I do plan on sticking to this thread and post picture of all progress and steps I make and hopefully with your help I will have a finished roof installed on my race car in the end.

I have bought a water fan heater coil and I am about to place it in may garage roof.. That way I can raise the temperature when I need to paint or doing carbon etc.. I can´t use electric stuff for heating because it makes my house and workshop heating system turn down the heating and the rest of the house gets cold..

Mounting the hot water fan I have then fixed my work shop temp.. But after seeing pictures of exterior carbon parts being destroyed in the hot sun I am convinced I need to cure the roof in a higher temperature some how. I have no oven but I few electrical heating fans in a smaller room should get it to around 50 deg anyway.. Anyone else have any other suggestions?

I made a big order of fabric resins, mold materials and consumables from Easy composites and I am looking forward of using everything and hopefully be successful making car parts with infusion.  

Back to mold making.. I got another roof.. I started leveling out dents and adding flanges. I made the long sides of the roof flat so they could be used as flanges and it also got rid of one more 90 deg angel making layup a bit easier. I also filled the front edge of the roof and the sides of the places where the roof moldings go. That way I hope the mold wont be mechanicaly locked by "negative" shapes to the roof plug.
After that I reminded myself why I hate sanding body filler.. It takes skill by experience and I have lost some of it.

Today I left the roof plug by a paint shop so it will be covered by 2k paint before making the mold.

That will save me some cash.. Thanks..

You don't need a degassing chamber, there's no need to degass for resin infusion - it just complicates the process and increases the opportunity for things to go wrong. Just follow the EC video tutorials.

Thank you.

Hi Frederik,

In terms of backing materials, any of those will work fine.  To be honest, even a "chunky" 650gsm cloth would get into the corners of a roof mould no problem.  Just choose the best value for money option based on building your thickness up.

For a simple mould like that, a U shape of spiral for the resin feed, all around the bottom edge and 2/3rds up the sides of the part is fine.  The vacuum port then goes centrally  at the top of the U shape.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant