Fiberglass Mold Making

Have a great day.

Steve

For my friends purpose, this is going to be a display only model. I will definitely make mine radio controlled. The differences in the two models should be minimal with the RC version simply allowing for easier access to the underside of the deck.

The full scale 11 meter RHIB is approximately 36 feet long. The first this that needs to happen is we need to decide on a size. My buddies wife would be happy if it were no longer than a foot from stem to stern. I think that making it 1/6 scale to fit GI Joe would be the way to go. Obviously we are pretty far apart on this so we decided on 1/10 scale making it about 43 inches long. This sized boat will allow me to buy some off the shelf detail pieces such as guns, ammo boxes and maybe even the 50 caliber machine guns (hopefully, I would hate to have to make these!)

Scale is important with a project like this. To make sure that I get as close as possible, I scour the internet looking for photographs and drawings of the 11 meter. I was able to get my hands on a digital owners manual which was of great help as well. The first thing that I did with my photographs and drawings was to use my copier to blow up a drawing of the 11 meter from the top and from the side. My copier has a function that lets me resize a picture up to 200% with each pass through the machine. I did the math and ended up with side and top perspective drawings that give a length of exactly 43 inches long and 16.5 inches wide.

This series of blog posts will be done in real time and will follow my project as I make progress. Stay tuned!! I will post pictures as I progress.

Happy Glassing

Steve

www.fiberglassmoldmanual.com

Its funny how we do things that we think are not only the right way but the only way only to find out later that there are better ways. Years ago, when I first discovered the use of dry foam as a medium for plug construction, I thought that I had found the perfect plug building material. I easily carved out complex structures in a fraction of the time that it used to take when I used plaster and wood.

Then my bubble burst. I finished carving the foam for my new plug, covered it with resin and sea glass from the hobby store and let it cure. To my surprise, when I was applying bondo and glazing putty to level the surface of my plug, the plastic putty knife that I used easily went through the surface of my plug. It was then that I realized that the outer skin of this plug was too weak and needed re-enforcement. I fixed this problem by removing the thin layer of glass that I used to cover the foam and applying a 1/8 inch layer of bondo over the entire surface of my now less than pretty plug. Since this episode, I have always used foam in my plug construction but I always took that extra step with shaving down the foam and covering it with a layer of bondo before I start the final finish.

Recently, I began to evaluate my plug building procedures. While my tried and true method described above never failed me, I wanted to try something new. I recently was building a plug that I wanted to move quickly with. After carving the foam, I went ahead and decided to cover it as it was with 1 ½ ounce chopped mat and resin. I remembered when I had my bad experience with this method I had used very light material from my hobby shop. The 1 ½ ounce mat worked perfectly. It provided a very solid surface to work with without adding excessive size to the plug that I had carved from the foam.

I basically did two things differently with the foam. The first thing that I did was thoroughly saturate the surface with resin. The second thing that I did was use a much heavier chopped mat to cover the plug.

I always read and research fiberglassing techniques. I had not really researched or evaluated my plug construction techniques for years. This “new to me method” saved me a TON of time and materials (bondo). I don’t believe that this way of plug building affected the quality of my final product at all.

I would recommend trying this method for your next project.

Happy Glassing

Steve

www.fiberglassmoldmanual.com

I just finished building a new mold for a 1/10 scale radio controlled car. One of the great things about making radio controlled car bodies out of fiberglass is the detail and the undercuts that can be formed using multi-piece molds. The realism is much greater than that which can be found in a vacuum formed body.

Multi-piece molds are always necessary for building three dimensional objects - whether those objects are hobby related or not. With the exception of very simple molds, multi-piece molds are almost always required or at least preferable. The obvious reasons for the use of a multi-piece mold are driven by the ease of extracting your parts from that mold. Molds that are very deep are difficult to lay-up parts in and can be very difficult to pull your parts out of.

The draft angle of your plug is a major determining factor that will determine the need for a multi-piece mold. Smaller parts may require no draft angle while larger parts that are deeper than 12 inches will require a draft angle of up to 5 degrees.

Automotive parts other than hood scoops, fender flairs, spoilers, etc are often done with one piece molds. Larger parts, such as doors, hoods, entire bodies and the like are almost always done as two piece molds.

I was looking at my first and main Fiberglass Mold Manual in which I outline the procedures for building a simple one piece mold. The funny thing about this manual is that the project that I follow in this manual ultimately required 3 separate one piece molds. A project requiring 3 separate one piece molds can also be labeled as a multi-piece mold.

Multi-piece molds do give many benefits to the builder, but there are a few drawbacks. Multi-piece molds do produce a flash line that must be dealt with. Flash lines require filling, sanding and refinishing. Flash lines are created by imperfections in the edge of the mold and in the general alignment of the pieces of the mold. In my opinion flash lines are a minor trade off for the many benefits of a multi-piece mold.

Happy Glassing

Steve

www.fiberglassmoldmanual.com

I have written blog entries in the past in which I have shared my experiences with new techniques and new products that are available for construction with composites. This is another one of those.

Whenever I am building the surface of a part that is being made of chopped mat, I end up with a fairly course surface that will need a final finishing.

I have employed various means to smooth out a fiberglass surface. Some of these finishing methods include the following:

For some applications I use veil over the final layer of chopped mat. This method hides most of the course fibers of the chopped mat without adding an excessive amount of extra weight to the final product. In fact, when I add a final veil covering I very rarely have to add any extra resin to the finish. Usually I can use a small roller to press the veil onto the surface of the still uncured mat / resin underneath it forcing the resin to seep into the veil and provide adequate saturation on the surface. The individual fibers of veil are much finer than those of chopped mat so the final surface is smoother.

For other applications I mix a putty-like consistency combination of resin and cabosil that I use to smooth over the surface. This has been one of my favorite methods for finishing a fiberglass surface. The cabosil / resin mixture can be made as thick or thin as your project requires. Once this mixture is spread over the surface and cures, it can be sanded smooth and finished.

Sometimes I will simply skin the surface with bondo. I like bondo because it sands so easily and cures so fast. You can smooth out a surface in a hurry with bondo. The drawbacks to using bondo are that it is easily chipped / damaged and it almost cures too fast. I have wasted a good amount of bondo over the years by mixing more than I could use in its working period.

The other day I went to my local fiberglass supply store and asked for a ¼ pound of cabosil. The gentleman that helped me asked if I wanted something that would sand a little easier. I said “sure” and he suggested microballoons. The microballoons mixed into a nice white paste and spread easily on the surface of my project. It also sanded easily as promised. In addition to easy sanding, it also seems durable as it passed the hammer tap test that I performed on the tip to the bow of my boat project. It didn’t hit it full force but I hit it hard enough to crack bondo and the microballoons didn’t crack. I was impressed.

In the beginning of this article I said that I was writing about a new product. Microballoons are not “new”, they are simply new to me. Once again, we tend to get comfortable with methods and materials that are known to us and close ourselves off to other products and procedures that are available.

Fiberglass Deep Vee Radio Controlled Boat

Happy Glassing

Steve

www.fiberglassmoldmanual.com