fiberglass construction

Hey boys:

I have a whole or full aluminum Eddie Bauer hard top from the 50's or 60's for my '59 M38A1.
From time to time someone will want it and I have to disappoint them, not fun.

Most of the those conversations come down to this. HOW DO YOU USE THE RIBBED FULL TOP as a form top and make enough of a length on top of the aluminum top to make a half top length with fiberglass and how to reinforce it.
I saw in my idea that the front angle would be the same as the windshield angle and flat and close to flush to the windshield as practical.
The rear would come straight down at a right angle to the top of the rear inner fenders.
A flat sheet piece of fiberglass could get a plexiglass window in the center high up and solid to the floor with a rubber gasket to fill the risers in the floor.
The whole top has a flared drip edge on the sides for rain already.
I have an old windshield frame to form up that transition for the up front weather seal.
My plan uses soft doors daily
I have hard doors to make that transition for the sides.
Low on the rear outer face of the top in the "bed" would be the fuel can and tire mount.

I am the lesser known Unkel Dale, you are familiar with my well known and older cousin Uncle Sam.

I have never worked with fiberglass.
How much money did I just talk about?

 

the user jscherb makes awesome glass parts he would have an idea how to go about this.

 

Roger that

 

Do I understand correctly that you have a full-length hardtop and you would like to use that as a pattern for making a fiberglass half-cab hardtop?

Do you have any photos of your cuttent hardtop you could post or send me so I could advise you? Photos of the outside and inside of the top would be helpful.

Do you have any experience with firberglass work?

Jeff

 

Hello

Yes, I have a complete full top?

No, I do not have photos yet, but I can do that and send them to you.

My email is Dale at goldenschorr@Verizon.net, that is the only way to get photos to you.

Nope, never worked with fiberglass.

 

Dale,
I've looked at all the photos you've emailed me and it appears that your top is like many others of the period, it's made of separate sheet metal pieces (roof, 2 sides, etc.), that get assembled into the final top. It's very similar to another fiberglass hardtop project I've done, so I can give you some recommendations on a good way to proceed.

You said you want to use the existing full-length top as a form somehow to make a fiberglass half cab. So there are two tasks here - first, how to make a mold or molds of the current top, and second, how to turn it into a half cab. To do this right, with quality results, is a lot of work, but it's pretty straightforward and uses basic fiberglass skills (more on the fiberglass skills in a moment).

Because of the way the top is constructed, it's best to disassemble it and make individual molds of all of the pieces. Each mold will be a reasonable size (well, the roof will be fairly large), and having it in smaller pieces will be easier to modify into a half cab. Molds can be made from existing parts without any risk of damage to those parts, as long as the parts are prepared with wax and mold release, fiberglass can be laid up on them and once cured, it will be easily removable. So the first part of the project is to make the molds for all of the parts. You'll end up with a set of molds that looks something like this, this photo is from a similar project I did:



Once those molds are made, you can make parts in the molds, and you'll end up with a set of parts, something like this:



Those parts could be assembled into a complete full hardtop to be a replica of the original hardtop you made the molds from, but you want to make a half cab out if it.

To make a half cab, you'd modify these parts - cutting them to length as required, splicing them where necessary. For example the roof would have a section cut out of the center of it and then would be spliced back together with fiberglass; the seam would be cleaned up with body filler so it wasn't visible. You would shorten the roof and the side panels as necessary, parts like the back wall would likely be used as is. You'd also probably want to change the back wall so it no longer had a hatch, that would be a separate fiberglass step I could detail for you if that's what you wanted to do.

My project assembled into a full hardtop that looks like this:



And I also made a half cab version of it just like you intend to do, here's what the half cab version looks like:



BTW because my hardtop is modular (like yours is) and the side panels are removable, I also made the roll-up soft sides for the summer...



About the fiberglass work necessary - there's nothing terribly hard about it. To make the molds, you'd follow these steps:

- Prepare the original part with mold release wax followed by spraying PVA mold release on it. Spray equipment is required, but this could be a <$20 spray gun from Harbor Freight. You'd need a compressor to provide air to the spray gun.

- Shoot the surface with gel coat. Gel coat is the top layer of fiberglass that provides the color and smooth surface. My molds are orange, that's one of the two common colors of tooling gel coat, which is used for making molds. In addition to providing a smooth surface for the molds, gel coat protects the original part when the fiberglass is laid up on it in the next step. A gel coat "dump gun" is really best for spraying the gel coat on, they're about $120 and also require a compressor.

- When the gel coat has cured to the right point, 3-4 layers of fiberglass mat is used to completely cover the part; each layer is saturated with polyester resin, which can be applied and "stippled in" with a disposable paint brush to fully soak the fiberglass mat.

- Once everything has cured (usually overnight is best), the molds are popped off the original parts, the rough edges are trimmed, and then they can be used to make parts. The same sequence of steps is followed for making parts.

To learn more about fiberglass work, I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Fiberglass-Composite-Materials-Aird-Forbes/dp/B000PD3MHA. Fiberglass work is actually pretty straightforward and fairly easy, but there's a lot to know, so reading a book like this is a prerequisite for doing your first fiberglass project.

I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

 

Jscherb,

Wow......... that is a pretty sexy looking top you built............Was that a plug off of another top or did you freelance the shape?..........in either case very nice.

 

It's 100% my own design. I build mold master parts from wood, made molds from those parts and then molded the final parts in those molds. Here's a mockup in my workshop with printout windows, this was taken after the woodworking was done but before I put a finish on the wood for moldmaking.

 

So your a mold maker?...............Always nice to see and appreciate the talents that some possess ...........obviously having the right tools is a part of the equation...........but finding the right person like yourself that has the vision , mind set and ability to steer the tools is by far the greatest accomplishment.

 

amazing work, love the craftsmanship I can see

 

No, I'm not a moldmaker and I don't do this professionally - it's a hobby for me. I taught myself fiberglass by reading books and trying things, and I do all the work in my home workshop and garage.

I never liked the "upside down bathtub" look of factory Jeep hardtops, so I designed my top with all the features and styling I thought a proper Jeep hardtop should have, and then I built it.

The hardtop was my first major fiberglass project; I've done a bunch of other large Jeep fiberglass designs since that one.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Wow, really nice work! A lightweight ECJ5 hardtop would be a real moneymaker.

 

The nice thing about doing them in fiberglass is that once you've made the molds, you can mold more copies very easily, it's not like starting from scratch for each top like you'd have to do if you made them in aluminum.

And if you're more comfortable working in aluminum than you are in wood, you could always make the mold masters out of aluminum and then make the molds from the aluminum masters.

 

yes he is...thanks

 

I've received a number of messages asking about fiberglass since posting the response to Dale the other day. For anyone serious about doing their own fiberglass work, I highly recommend the book Fiberglass and other composite materials by Forbes Aird. You might also check your local library, many of them have books on building fiberglass boats. My local library has several, some of which are from the 60's, but the techniques, materials and advice in those books is still very relevant today for home fiberglass projects.

I've also been asked where I get my fiberglass materials - there are quite a few suppliers online; I use U.S. Composites (http://uscomposites.com/). I've been happy with their prices, service and the quality of their resins. All of the fiberglass supplies and special tools (like a gelcoat gun) you need to build something like the hardtop I showed earlier can be found there.

 

If it really would be a moneymaker, I wonder why there aren't any on the market? It wouldn't be too hard to make molds for one, either by using an original hardtop to make a mold from, or by doing something custom in wood like I did.

 

Here's a hardtop on Craigslist for $50 I found this morning: http://binghamton.craigslist.org/pts/4397883711.html. This one would be pretty easy to make molds from, and the shape of it lends itself well to modifying into a half cab (either cutting/welding this one or making a fiberglass half cab version).

 

jscherb that is superb craftsman-ship. A money making hobby might be making and selling molds of your design.