Fiberglassing (on a budget) 101

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Intro and Supplies
Design and Setting Up
Resin and Strength
Sanding and Finishing

Sanding:

Take a moment to look at your box. Visualize what the finished product will be - how you want it to look, and what all of your friends will say. Now remember that when you are sanding for hours on end. DO NOT rush the sanding process. It may take a while, if you feel like rushing - take a break. Relax, watch some TV, then continue sanding. You will be much happier with the finished product if you do not rush through it.

The first sanding: Basically you just want to get the high spots down on the fleece. Remember all of that resin that you applied to the fleece to get the basic shape? Now sand it flat. Use 80 grit sandpaper with your orbital sander, this will make it go quickly and smoothly. Do not stay in one spot for too long, keep moving the sander, you do not want a flat spot in your enclosure. Keep in mind this does not have to be perfect, this is only the first step in the sanding process. Do not fret the pinholes.

Ok, it's flat. That wasn't so bad. Now lets add some body filler. This is just like the resin, only thicker. You'll need to measure out how much body filler you'll need, and mix it with hardener as per manufacturer's instructions. You'll know when it is completely mixed, depending on what brand you buy, it will turn a different color when you add the hardener.

Don't feel like buying a mixing board? Use a scrap piece of MDF! Works great to mix your body filler on, and if it gets dirty and cluttered, throw it away!

When you have completely mixed the body filler, spread it on with your plastic squeegee. Try to get nice and smooth so it saves on sanding later, if you can't get it perfect, do not worry - it always sands.

Body filler takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to dry enough to sand it. You're wearing your respirator, right? You'll know if you start to sand it too early because you will clog up your sandpaper within seconds. Sand the body filler with the 120 grit for the first time, and 150 after the second application of body filler. After this, you should be able to wipe off the dust with a paper towel to see if there are any pinholes in the filler. If these do not come out while sanding, do not lay the sander on trying to get rid of them - this will create flat spots in your piece. Instead use a technique known as "cake batter". Before mixing in the hardener, mix up a batch of body filler with Rubbing Alcohol. Mix in a little at a time, until you get a concistancy similar to, you guessed it, cake batter - then add your hardener and apply. This mixture will be able to seep into those little pinholes where the thicker version of the body filler could not. If it gets to the point where you just can not fill in those holes, try applying the cake batter mixture with a razor blade to only those pinhole areas. This may help.

As soon as you are sure you got all of the holes out. Sand the piece with 220, than 320 - you might want to block sand (yes by hand) the area because a sander may be too harsh.

Now, if you are not going to paint it - you're done! Heck, you may have taken it a bit far if you are going to cover it with vinyl, but you have a fine looking part as of right now.

However, if you are going to paint. It is now ready for the first coat of primer. Think it's smooth? Shoot some primer on it. Still smooth? If it is congrats, but if not, sand again with 320, shoot more primer, sand, etc. Do this until you are confident that this is ready for a glossy jet black finish. Good? Now sand with 400-600 grit and spray the paint.

Paint:

Now this is not a painting tutorial, but we would like to get some basic painting questions out of the way.

First, YES - you can rattle can an enclosure and have it look nice. Well then what is wrong with rattle cans? Why do people not like them? From a technical aspect, a normal HVLP paint gun is able to spray out about a 3x thicker layer onto the part than a rattle can. You can not always tell on the base coat, but the clear coat will not be as deep, and the final product will not be as glossy unless you use a few extra coats.

So why not use a rattle can? You are limited on your paint selection. Paint jobs these days are primarily 'base coat - clear coat'. Urethane paint. Rattle cans generally have the older Enamel paint. Also, a spray gun will have a better spray pattern - better atomization of the paint than a rattle can. What does that mean? It means a better finish.

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