So teach me about fiberglassing..., oil cooler shroud inspired by eastcoaste Options

[Aaron Cox]

i have a 13" x 4" setrab cooler in the front of my car... its been up and running with no ducting so far. id like to make a fiberglass shroud to duct the air out the bottom......

so - reading east coaster's fg cooler shroud thread i think this is a great idea....
BUT
i know nearly nothing about fiberglassing....

i have no problem shaping a nice foam "plug" (what kind of foam should i use?) et.....

so if someone could give me a run down on procedure such as...

Plug / release agent/ fg cloth/ resin / cloth / resin

they have a fiberglassing kit at FLAPS, 32 oz resin, 8 sqft fg cloth, hardener and maybe some matt was in there also - dont remember...

so any help you could give me would be much appreciated

AA

[Joe Owensby]

Another good source of materials is Aircraft Spruce and Specialty, located in Corona,California- Aircraftspruce.com. They have a good free catalogue with info on glass reinforced construction. I also think they have a good website. The floral foam someone mentioned earlier is the easiest to use for a mold. It is very soft, and can be contoured very easy with just a knife and sandpaper. In fact, the final sanding of a piece can be done with another piece of foam. Pieces of this foam can be glued together with bondo, or quick set epoxy, etc. Just keep the glue away from the final surface, so there will not be a hard glue spot to make the final shaping more difficult. The floral foam is also soft enough to fairly easily remove after the glass layup has hardened. It can be coated with plaster of paris after sanding the foam to shape (and then final sanded smooth) to give a smooth surface that will in-turn be transferred to your molded "fiberglass" structure after the mold is removed. the floral foam can be used with either epoxy or polyester resin (the kind you can buy at the local car parts store). Polyester resin is usually easier to use, as you can have it so that it hardens in a matter of 1 hour or less, whereas most of the epoxy lay up resins usually need to cure over night. Some epoxy resins can cause allergic skin reactions, and protective gloves should be used. Odors on epoxies are usually very minor. Polyester resins usually do not cause the allergic reactions on skin, but have more of a styrenic smell. For making relatively small layups, only moderate ventillation is required, but I would not do any inside your house. The fiberglass mat material is easier to use, but is not as strong, and does not look as nice. An open weave glass cloth can be very easily laid up by someone new to this, and get a pretty good looking part. Kevlar and carbon fiber cloths are much harder to work with. Good Luck, Joe