This is what i've been up to while waiting for the fire to get moving again. I've been wanting a front lip for my car since i've gotten it, and my buddy gave me a roll of fiberglass and some resin so i started building a front lip. I used whatever i had laying around my house and garage, which was:

hot glue
about 3 ft of 1/2"x2" pine, for supports
plywood for the shape of the bottom
length of garden hose for shaping the top
fleece blanket

the only thing i ended up paying for so far is a staple gun, $20

if everything goes well and i like what i've made, then i'm going to make side skirts, and eventually a rear lip. here is the progress so far.

I started with a piece of plywood, put the front bumper on there and traced the bottom. Then I cut it out with a sawz-all (mines a rip off) that was extremely dull. A jigsaw would have been nice.



And after cutting-



Then i cut some supports out of the piece of pine i had to about 3 1/2 inches, since adding the plywood would make the overall lip length around 4 inches average. i put only a few around the plywood so it would be easier to trim and level the lip the way i wanted.



I set the front end on carefully, and decided that i needed to trim the back supports a bunch, and add some length to the front ones. as you can see the front end is tilted downwards.



mild fixing.



i kind of missed a few pics here, but i'll explain. after all the adjustments and whatnot, i came on here and looked at a few front lip pics. i liked the gap in the middle of the rksport front lip (i think it was the rksport one) so i cut the middle portion and raised it a few inches. this was also a good time to put in some cross-bracing so i did that also. after that, i attached the whole thing to my bumper with the hot glue and put the front end on the car. once it was on, i further adjusted the lengths of the supports and angled the two sides so the bottoms more or less parallel to the ground. once everything was how i figured it should be, i added more bracing.






(people need NOT mention the ugly fender, or the condition of the rest of the car...it will be taken care of in time and yes, it looks like a 4x4, further accentuated by the lack of motor weight)

Now, here i missed another couple pics, but again, i'll explain. i wanted to have a nice round edge at the top of the lip and wasn't sure of how i'd get that in there until i seen some garden hose. to me it has the right radius, and it is flexible enough to make nice curves to match the bottom of the front end. so, with the wooden contraption still on there, i hot glued the hose to the bumper in a 'tack welding' fashion, so i could take it off easily later. once the hose was how i wanted it, i attached it to the rest of the front lip ONLY, taking care not to glue anything else to the bumper. i did this by lining the back of the hose with little strips of wood (same stuff i used for the supports) being sure to glue them to only the hose. once that was done i added more bracing and removed the whole thing, now the hose is attached and i have the perfect curve of the front end. note that 'perfect' is used loosely here.





note: there is probably a million easier/better ways to do this, but that's how I did it. it's VERY f'n tedious. oh well.

and then the fleecing ensued, typical fleecing, staple stretch staple stretch. i ended up having to use two pieces since the blanket i'd acquired was a small one. for this step, there was a few ideas that went through my head. i photoshopped what i call an 'artists rendering' and it looked STUPID, all bowed out at the bottom and lame. (kinda like the 'this makes me sad' post by J TO ENVY in P&M) so i looked at a few front ends on here, and figured i could have a little 1/2 inch lip run around the bottom of the lip. which worked out i think, people may be opinionated on this.




and this is how it will (hopefully) look, a little mock up.





i won't be putting on any resin or glass yet, as i'm waiting on some better resin. maybe a week or so i'll have some more progress. with my luck i'll get it done and hate it. i won't really know how it looks until i get a motor in the car.

C&C welcome of course. let me know what you think.






At Your Feet You Find Your Place In Hell, This Is My Retribution - The Autumn Offering

since you have not gone any farther, remember that when you put the engine back in that it will no longer be parallel. maybe simulating the weight would be a help before you get with the resin.

either way massive props on trying this out yourself and hopefully you get some help/advice from the more knowledgeable guys with this stuff like Joey or Vince or plain not me....

very good very good....keep us all updated

One question though.... How are you gonna seperate it all from the support structure you built? Or do you plan on leaving the wood and garden hose and all that there?

Looking good. I like the edges. Now time to make matching side skirts. Good luck to you. Wish I knew a thing or two about fiberglass.



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NCR-SCCA

i'll probably take some of it out, since all of it is just hot glued i'll be able to remove some of it and put in mounts, maybe some spray foam after it's all done. who knows about the hose. since i've never done this before it's more or less a wait and see kind of thing. i'll definitely let you know what i do when i get there.







At Your Feet You Find Your Place In Hell, This Is My Retribution - The Autumn Offering

definitely gonna match the sides eventually, and i've never fiberglassed before in my life. the reason i'm waiting on better resin is i have quick setting stuff and i'd rather have a little more work time, it'd be better for the lack of experience i have.





At Your Feet You Find Your Place In Hell, This Is My Retribution - The Autumn Offering

that looks pretty good actually. my only concern is your removal of all of that stuff after you have the glassed part. its one thing to use it in the construction......and another totally to leave it in afterwards.

but i def want to see some updates! looks like youve got some skill...

id leave it all in there!



WiGM-Tuners member.

(tabs) wrote:my only concern is your removal of all of that stuff after you have the glassed part. its one thing to use it in the construction......and another totally to leave it in afterwards.

not sure what you mean... i know there would be a difference in weight, but other than that i'm not sure why it'd matter, but i've never done this before anyways.





At Your Feet You Find Your Place In Hell, This Is My Retribution - The Autumn Offering

when i saw this

i gave a BIG !!!!

and was thinking that this is going to be all kinds of screwed up...

but the end result isnt as bad as i had first envisioned... i wouldnt choose the same design, but dammit i think i sees some skill there!!


now my biggest concern has already been voiced... what you'll do with the structure after its glassed. i dont know alot about glassing, just read and seen a few posts here and there. and hopefully someone will confirm this to be true or false, but couldnt he use tin foil and glass over that; and the just pop the FBglass off?? of course you'd still need to add support.....

i'll be watchin. best of luck

EvIllf1r3 wrote:definitely gonna match the sides eventually, and i've never fiberglassed before in my life. the reason i'm waiting on better resin is i have quick setting stuff and i'd rather have a little more work time, it'd be better for the lack of experience i have.

quick setting resin? what exactly do you mean? it hardens in accordance with the ammount of hardener you put in.

Its purfect....just like that.

but seriously. a VERY good job for a first fiberglass project. I think you could have some great talent devleloping.

EvIllf1r3 wrote:

(tabs) wrote:my only concern is your removal of all of that stuff after you have the glassed part. its one thing to use it in the construction......and another totally to leave it in afterwards.

not sure what you mean... i know there would be a difference in weight, but other than that i'm not sure why it'd matter, but i've never done this before anyways.

the difference is in one scenario you have just fiberglass added to your car. in the other, you have wood, garden hose, and other misc crap as part of your car. one is classic and the right way to do things. the other just seems very rickshawed and white trashy.

again, its fine to use whatever materials you need to construct the shape/design, but once you do and you lay that glass you really need to remove it all since it doesnt really help if the glassing part is done right.

hell of a job man, hell of a job. Make sure to "dab" the fiberglass on, DONT "brush" it on. You want to keep it as smooth as possible otherwise you will be filling and sanding for years! I like where this is going


Hamburger Helper..One Pound, One Pan, One Disfunctional Family!

(tabs) wrote:
the difference is in one scenario you have just fiberglass added to your car. in the other, you have wood, garden hose, and other misc crap as part of your car. one is classic and the right way to do things. the other just seems very rickshawed and white trashy.

again, its fine to use whatever materials you need to construct the shape/design, but once you do and you lay that glass you really need to remove it all since it doesnt really help if the glassing part is done right.

haha, good point....'rickshawed and white trashy' is probably where it went when i used that hose, but it worked for shape. can't argue with what works. i'll definitely pull all that @!#$ out then. i planned on pulling some of it out anyways so i can get some mounting locations on there.

hitman - dab fiberglass? do you mean resin?

what i have is fiberglass weave if it makes a difference.





Look Around You, The World Is Caving In, Victim Of Life, The Antihero - God Forbid

J03Y wrote:

EvIllf1r3 wrote:definitely gonna match the sides eventually, and i've never fiberglassed before in my life. the reason i'm waiting on better resin is i have quick setting stuff and i'd rather have a little more work time, it'd be better for the lack of experience i have.

quick setting resin? what exactly do you mean? it hardens in accordance with the ammount of hardener you put in.

my buddy said it'll give you about 5 min work time...i have no idea, he's used it before and said he can get me some 20 min work time stuff. he gets it out of big ass drums and buckets so i don't have any labels to read. he's also been working with kevlar and @!#$, that would be awesome to lay some of that over the front lip.


anyways, a question....would it make sense to resin up that fleece, then use that as a mold and pull the glass off of the fleece? because if that is a viable option then i could make more than one. and more than one means having a spare.





Look Around You, The World Is Caving In, Victim Of Life, The Antihero - God Forbid

EvIllf1r3 wrote:

J03Y wrote:

EvIllf1r3 wrote:

anyways, a question....would it make sense to resin up that fleece, then use that as a mold and pull the glass off of the fleece? because if that is a viable option then i could make more than one. and more than one means having a spare.

makes perfect sense....resin the fleece, then use a seperating agent (foil, wax) to glass over the fleece, then when u are all done i can POP it off and fill/sand it and then make more and SELL THEM..

BEWARE!

Adding this lip may cause the car to overheat, if in fact it blocks your lower air dam deflector.

Just beware of that.

It looks nice though!






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I doubt the 1" it hangs down in the center of the car will affect air flow to the rad severely enough to effect rad performance.

Kevin Richter wrote:BEWARE!

Adding this lip may cause the car to overheat, if in fact it blocks your lower air dam deflector.

Just beware of that.

It looks nice though!

i thought of that, that's part of the reason i cut the center and raised it up. plus, the two 'holes' on the stock bumper cover funnel air too, although not much since the actual bumper itself is in the way. but thanks, someones gotta keep an eye out for that kind of @!#$, since it can be so easily overlooked.





Look Around You, The World Is Caving In, Victim Of Life, The Antihero - God Forbid

you sir have a pm! like i said if it turns out, id be willing to trade you some money for one of those puppies.

I think I found some more of your work...





nah....just kidding....any update pics??

the resin hardens according to how much hardener you add. its a two part process. realistically you could use figerglass resin without any hardener but it would take proalby a few months or year to haren. add allot of hardener it will cure quickly. to quickly and your fiberglass will become brittle and week not enough and it will take hours to dry.

as for the structure, remove it, the thing would way 100 pounds.

the one poster was talking about the resin itself with the brushes. u dab it to get all the resin into the fiberglass. if you just brush it on like paint the resin won't get into the fiberglass completly giving you air bubbles and a weak structture. if your going to use what you have as a mold your going to have to fiberglass and and fill it and finsh it so its as smooth as a finshed piece and be careful about fitment because you do that then use it as a mold. now adding the fiberglass on top of that to make the new one will give you a bigger piece.


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This is looking very nice. I'll be checking back in here when I start making my rear lip