Fiberglass hood anyone ever made one?

[nissan's_fury]

I am considering fabricating my own fiber glass hood.  Has anyone ever messed with fiberglass or know a little about it?  The guy at the local body shop  said that it is probably fairly easy.  Anyone got any advice?

[mrdirty]

I've done a fair bit of fiberglassing and I assure you; your body shop guy is wrong...

Firstly, you can't just lay down fiberglass and build up a mostly flat object like a hood without suitable reinforcement; you would basically be engineering a hood from scratch. If your reinforcement is not there or is not sufficient the whole thing would likely rip off and block the windscreen; possibly killing you. Reinforcement can be made by any way u see fit, although I would go w/ a series of fiberglass channels tieing the hood together.

Secondly, attachment to hinges and latch is a trick and a half; and alignement would be very difficult; again tieing into the hood itself is going to require some thought.

Thirdly, the only realistic way to get a duplicate hood is to make a mold from epoxy based (not polyester, it will shrink) glass; this will be very expensive, unless you plan on making several hoods and selling them, then it may be a bit more cost effective. The mold will have to be near flawless, and is a test of even a good fiberglasser. It will have to be reinforced itself so that it doesn't deflect while curing or moving.

Fourthly (is that a word?) you will be laying up around 1/8" of glass w/ non-polyester resin (again the shrinking thing) into the mold and sandwiching the composite (vaccum bagging is ideal but not absolutely necessary).

Hopefully in the end, you have a near flawless surface or else it will look like ass, and start w/ the body filler and sanding; then prime and paint. Don't forget to attach the reinforcement and the latch assembly and hinges.

Realistically, you will spend twice what a c-fiber hood costs and will junk it because it was a first go and looked like crap.

As you can see, this is a very costly process to get right; and to what end? To take off a few pounds, i'd rather go on a diet or pull out one of my amps...

If you're serious though, ask more questions and I'll help as much as I can...

Ps, if u get the mold right let me know and i'll get u to make me one!

[HKrpS13]

Easy but too much work and itchy. Just go to Home Depot and get a big sheet of grill or fence. Cut and bend that so it matches the hood. After that, fiberglass, then bondo. This should be fine because we have the bone (grill/fence) then we have the meat (fiberglass) and skin (bondo), just like human.

[Red]

Dont waist your time, I have done quite a bit of glassin and if you can avoid makin your own, do it. just buy a C-Fiber one and save yourself the brain damage from the resin. <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'> The only reason I will glass jack on my car is cuz i'm guna blending my body kit into my car. And I put flayers on a porche <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'> looks sweet.

[hopeful]

http://www.bryanf.com/info/carbon.htm

That might help you out, and good luck.

[nissan&#39;s_fury]

Hey &nbsp;thanks for all the help &nbsp; i might do a little playing to see what i think. &nbsp;I'll let you all know how it turns out