I did use pro-finish and I still sucked at it.

 I have a plan of attack for my next try (don't want to use cuts). I'm going to fold the carbon in 1/2 and do the "valleys" first working up to the openings, cut the holes and wrap inside, then over the tops on to the flat part. Ill also use a bigger piece of carbon this one was kinda tight.

If the base coat of resin dried too much will this still come out or did I just ruin my mold too?

Thanks for the help

Chris

Hi,

One thought about when you say "Resin would not stick to the mold" : from my experience, I think it would be because of tensions in your fabric. Too many forms for the fabric to take withtout any help from vacuum force. Then a few cuts would help here.

 



 


    A $1000 electronic device will always protect a 10 cents fuse

I think you will struggle to get the weave looking perfect using one piece of carbon as the shape is complicated.  Perhaps a few thought out cut lines??

if it were me, perhaps try some profinish carbon and accept you will have visible (but neat and planned) cut lines.

Carbon= FAIL

You can see how it pullet out of line here





You can see here where I had to cut the "pleat" off to lay somewhat flat in front



Twill FAIL



Ill be buying some faster resin because I fell asleep waiting for it to "tack up" and it went mostly hard.

Plus the resin would not stick to the mold. It looked like oil on wax paper. Should I have not waxed the mold first?

perhaps a couple of thinner layers is better. In my experience it has only pooled when i brushed it on thick.

You should be able to get a nice thin layer all over it without it running off then leave it a while until it begins to cure (still sticky and gloopy) then apply another layer before leaving it to go tacky for the putty.

I used wax and easy-lease on the mold and now the resin is pooling up. What do i do?!?!? Wipe the wet resin off the mold and use a faster hardner( I am using a slow hardner)? Do i do 2 coats of resin on the mold before I lay carbon? Maybe I wait till the resin sets up a little and smooth it out with a brush.

Hi,

Thats a nice looking mould... moulding the part might be tricky though what's you plan there?! to sand out the texture where the grill was I would start quite high with the grit number... somthing like 800 with water, it'll take a while to sand but in my opinion it's better to for it to take a bit of time at first because there's nothing worse that polishign it up at the end only to find some deep scatches left by a 'fat' grit! can't wait to see how you get on with these!

Then there were two



I think it came out good. A little clean up and ill be ready for carbon. What grits should I use to smooth out the front "grill"?

Gel coat is on, mixed up way too much. If I did both headlights I would have had the perfect amount.



Hope this works!

If your worried about mechchanical lock, then make a 2 part mould. Solves the problem then.