in many instances it is beneficial to use fiberglass as a means to do subwoofer enclosures in car audio. you can create endless shapes, get incredible strength with low weight and conform to the car's shape. although fiberlassing is not that tough, sometimes it is hard to find detailed how-to's, so i wrote this one up---hopefully it is helpful to anyone thinking about it.. also, since it is hard to calculate the internal volume up these enclosures, a sealed box is almost always chosen (since u can be off by as much as 20% volume and not tell a difference), otherwise you can measure the volume afterwards using packing peanuts, and a container of a known volume---and add volume to the glass'ed box until the right volume is attained... here it is
http://web.njit.edu/~cas1383/glassing2/
-chris
http://web.njit.edu/~cas1383/glassing2/
-chris
the cloth that i used was like a t-shirt yes, but you can use any kind of cloth really.. fleece, or sweat-shirt type material is probably the best but a t-shirt will work as well-- anything that will soak some moisture and is stretchable will work, then you just lay more glass on top of it
-chris
-chris
Hey great 'step by step'! Ive been looking for this sought of info all night.They charge a fortune to buy these ready made over here. im planning on building two t both house 12s on either side of my boot. ill be interested to see your end result and i will post some pics of mine when im finished.
What would you need to do in order to paint it when you have finnished? any pointers will be greatfull.
What would you need to do in order to paint it when you have finnished? any pointers will be greatfull.
if you want to finish it for painitng you have to do the following
after the glass is all done, you apply a 'milkshake' coat.. a milkshake is a 1:1 mixture of bondo and polyester resin. mix each with its own hardener, then mix them together.. apply this with a putty knife over the entier thing, make it as smooth as possible.. u can use bondo by itself but it cracks very much, so adding resin makes it stronger.. Even so, u may still have some cracks, so sand this milkshake down, then apply glazing putty (found in home depot paints), to the cracks.. after that dries sand again with a finer paper.. then use a high build primer, several coats.. sand again.. then paint several coats... sand 220+ grit, clear coat, wet sand.. all done
-chris
after the glass is all done, you apply a 'milkshake' coat.. a milkshake is a 1:1 mixture of bondo and polyester resin. mix each with its own hardener, then mix them together.. apply this with a putty knife over the entier thing, make it as smooth as possible.. u can use bondo by itself but it cracks very much, so adding resin makes it stronger.. Even so, u may still have some cracks, so sand this milkshake down, then apply glazing putty (found in home depot paints), to the cracks.. after that dries sand again with a finer paper.. then use a high build primer, several coats.. sand again.. then paint several coats... sand 220+ grit, clear coat, wet sand.. all done
-chris
Hi all.
Thanx for the wicked tutorial. Damn ive been searching for sumtin like this.
Can you maby help me? I wanna glass my whole boot with two 12" or two 15 inch subs.
How do i do that? i mean making it fit in the entire boot without even seeing the floor?
Do i make two moulds?
Sorry man but im kinda new to this.
Thanx for the wicked tutorial. Damn ive been searching for sumtin like this.
Can you maby help me? I wanna glass my whole boot with two 12" or two 15 inch subs.
How do i do that? i mean making it fit in the entire boot without even seeing the floor?
Do i make two moulds?
Sorry man but im kinda new to this.
if you want to get rid of air bubbles they make special fiberglass rollers (looks like a paint roller with just metal blades) you can press down and flatten the glass--or just use smaller peices around curves and it will be less likely to create air bubbles. If you cannot get rid of an air bubble and you are worried about it compromising the strength, when it is all dry you can drill a hole in it and fill it with resin--that should make it stronger... As far as making 2 12s or a 15 in your car -- Most people make a false floor... that is they glass the entier bottom of the car, then make a base out of 2x4s of wood, then make an entire false floor of the trunk, raised up a few inches---just attach the 2x4s to the fiberglass with resin, and nail/glue the false floor to the 2x4's.. this raised area gives you much more cubic ft air space and looks OEM--since the entire floor is raised it is hard to tell anything has changed. you can trace the area of your trunk with a peice of cardboard, then transfer that to mdf and cut out--
good luck!
-chris
good luck!
-chris
yea painters tape is preferred bc it will not leak, and it releases easier, but its nearly 4x as much than regular masking tape--- the masking tape i used is the cheap painters tape---but the blue tape is the good stuff---its very thick... This is why i used aluminum foil, which is cheap and it wont leak..
-chris
-chris
you can reach me at cas1383@njit.edu
iaudio, some people use spray adhesive to attach thick weave matting to the surface they are going to glass---then simply paint on the resin--this is a very quick way to get the first layer done
-chris
iaudio, some people use spray adhesive to attach thick weave matting to the surface they are going to glass---then simply paint on the resin--this is a very quick way to get the first layer done
-chris
sure---in the tutorials i described, i painted on resin, then applied patches of glass and dabbed it with more resin---this works fine but it takes forever if you are doing a very large area.. If you are doing a large area (that is relatively smooth, no huge curves), you can simply lay a big peice of fiberglass over the entire area.. Use spray adhesive on the bottom side so the glass will stay. Then you simply paint on resin like you would paint on paint. Unfortunately, i do not have any pictures of what im trying to say--but just picture painting a very large peice of fiberglass.. This process works best with fiberglass weave rather than chopmatt, because if you try to paint chop matt, it falls apart---the weaved fiberglass will hold still, and not move due to the spray adhesive (3M makes good stuff). Also, as fiberglass is very strong in curves/corners, and not as much in long straight peices, you will have to add several more layers on the large areas, and using the painting process speeds up your time very quickly.. In a recent project, We cut out large rectangular sections of weave matt and painted that on the flat areas, and on the curves, we used chopmatt and used the dabbed method as i descriped in my tutorials...
-chris
-chris
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