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SolaraGuy.com • View topic - How to sound deaden your car and fiberglass too!
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:57 pm
by QuickSEV6
That is nothing short of awesome.

Very cool.

Thanks for posting.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:26 pm
by [SMAN]
Yeah, next update will be in a few weeks. I need to order some more raw material. since i used up so much of it. And who knows what i'm going to do for the solara.

PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:32 pm
by [SMAN]
Ok, so this weekend i was able to spend some time. I removed all the tape from the molds and they still fit great. THey hardened up real nice. So the next step was to start making our floating rings for the outer part ofthe box. Using a jig i made from a screw and an old piece of scrap wood i had lying around i was able to make 2 passes to cutout my ring.

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So after sanding down the rigns to get ridof the burs on the edges, we used a dremmel (Gods gift to DIYers like me) and trimmed the fiberglass to size. All this stuff generates a lot of dust, so make sure you have shop vacs to clean as you go.
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Once we find out right placement, we can start the 2nd fiberglass layer.

PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:54 pm
by crispone
^^^ SMAN, this is fantastic!


Great work, and super play-by-play for the rest of us! Very much enjoying your hard work and SKILZ, dude!


-crisp :evilbat: :drinking:

PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:58 pm
by [SMAN]
Well the one thing i have tried to show in all this is that ANYONE can do it. You don't special tools (allthough some things do make things easy, and if you haven't noticed, i am just a tig welder short of having every tool on the planet), but anyone can do this with a little time, effort, and planing. Hopefully one day when this is all done it will be a sticky cause the wealth of knowledge in this is amazing. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is this thread worth?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:23 am
by GzNutz
Can't wait to see the finished product! :D

PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:07 pm
by LostSoul
straight putting in work! nice job

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:21 pm
by [SMAN]
Got some time to work on it again. To float the rings, cut some small pieces of MDF. You need to scale the edges so that it fits the edges of the box properly and keeps things structuraly sound. To hold all the pieces together, you can just use high temp hot melt glue. The nice thing about this is that once your done, you can heat up the posts and pull them out later. Make sure things are strong because the fiberglass resin will put a large amount of force on the whole thing as it cures. I have seen a few peoples boxes colapse as it goes.

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As you can see, i went for a 3-D shap that tilts them slightly forward and up.

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Seems to be a good fit in the car.

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So now, we must streatch fleece across the top. To hold it on, for the most part you can use spray adheesive. I coated the upper edges all around and covered the ring. However with this design, it wasn't sticking to all the edges, so i used a staple gun to make sure it would stay. You must streatch the fleece very tight and then trim off the rest.

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Then your setup should look like this. Don't mind the indentations, we'll fix that up with body filler later.

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Just like before, we use fiberglass resen, only this time we soak the fleece. No point in doing the excess on the sides or the middle because all that will be done away with anyways. Just coat things nice and well and make sure you get it into all the little spots. The more you use the better and let it harden like before.

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PostPosted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:32 pm
by [SMAN]
MILK SHAKE!!!

Ok so milkshake is basicly a mixture of bodyfiller and fiberglass resin. This gives it a paintable workability but it hardens like a rock, it's great for filling in all the little spots and makign it a lot more even. I got most of my inspiration from this thread.

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/for ... 74519~PN~1

and

http://www.gadrivers.net/~dwicker/fiberglass.html

This stuff hardens quick so grab your cheap brushes and go at it. As you can see, it hardened before we finished applying it all, but that just means more sanding.

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So i applied a coat of milkshake to the top to strengthen the outside of the mold before i "float" the rings.

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Now here is why we use hot glue. Once this is all set, you cut out your inner portion. Using a heat gun, heat up the bottoms of the support bars, and one by one they should come out. You don't need to do this, but it looks cool as the ring is now floating. It's just a little trick that the pros do.
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Once you've floated your rings, it's time to coat the inside with milkshake. You want to use a little less hardener, and a little more ressen than usual to make it a bit runnier. Mix up atleast a quart and pour it in. Then roatate your box around and shake it so that the stuff spreads evenly around the entire insides. Make sure you get it over everything and spend a lot of time in the corners. This stuff will go everywhere and an ammount will spill out, so make sure your waering crummy cloths and over some newspaper or you'll turn your driveway green like i did. This will re-enforce the entire insides of the box and if done correctly, the box should support your entire weight and you should be able to stand on it (not recomended unless you know you've done it right). This also will make the box air tight (hopefully).

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:09 am
by blaK
Woot!!!! Woot!!! WTG!!!!

PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:03 am
by Down2TheC
Well hell... with that process, if someone would loan me their front lips I could make a mold. Any volunteers? Aw who am I kidding, I'd want to do the whole kit.

Nice work man. True dedication (or obsession)

PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:31 pm
by PXLpainter
Down2TheC wrote:Well hell... with that process, if someone would loan me their front lips I could make a mold. Any volunteers? Aw who am I kidding, I'd want to do the whole kit.


And we'd see the fruit of your labor about 3 years from now... kinda like the way that the window electronics hack is going, eh? ;) hehe

PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:50 pm
by [SMAN]
Making molds is actualy a lot easier than people think. THe biggest hurdels are proffit and liability. Of course if you want them to be like OEM, you gotta get them injection molded with ABS plastic, or they will crack the first time they scrape the ground.

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:24 pm
by [SMAN]
Did some sanding today. I started off with an electric sander, then used some by hand to start to shape things. As you can see there are still a lot of holes, so the next chance i get, i will spread some body filler over it to fill in the holes. This is where the box really begins to take shape.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:20 pm
by JoBu
Fantastic job. This makes for some great reading and anticipation to see how the next phase will work out.

I'm hoping some of the folks will be inspired by your work and do this job to their cars...and then maybe one of them will sell it to me. :)

Cheers,

Joe