Stevo Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 I wish I could tell you what to use... I don't have any experience in this department. I'm sure fiberglass would go the way all ricer kits would go and crack all to hell when struck slightly. I have no idea what the factory noseclips are even made of because when I cut up my Cutlass Bumper cover it sure was not the plastic I thought it was made of. If I made a pace car replica nose it would be fiberglass though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy K Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 hows carbon fiber (painted of course) for a material? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AWeb80 Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 hows carbon fiber (painted of course) for a material? very very strong.....but kinda costly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManicMechanic Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Urethane? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3.1cutlass Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 I'm thinking you really should take it. Clean it up. Make molds of it for fiberglass and start printing your own money so to speak. I have this in mind for a project myself, but was hoping to make it out of a flexible material so that they'll last. I will be watching for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Urethane? Pour molds? Is it possible to get Urethane of that rigidity yet maintain flexibility to not split open easy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89 bk olds 5 speed Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 I respect your decision and think you made the right choice. I will be looking forward to bidding. Really the only fair way to part with such a hot Item. I'm sure you had tons of offers. Will probably go for a chunk of change. To bad you couldn't get a mold made first. Our caps at work are made of a pretty flexible plastic maybe I can check into exactly what they are made of. Flexible but does not crack! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mra32 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Making a mold is much harder than you think. Especially for something like a bumper. And youd want polyurethane, thats what most bumpers and stuff are made of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatGoSplat Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 That's pretty cool, I love how they look from the front, but not too thrilled about the sideview. Looks too long, like a Jay Leno chin for the car. If it could be shortened 3" or so, it would look badass. FYI, the bumpers (and cladding) on these cars are made of thermoset urethane, not polyurethane. Polyurethane is a thermoplastic urethane. "Thermoset urethane is prepared by mixing several ingredients which react chemically, generating heat and forming a new material that's stronger than the sum of its parts. While still in liquid form, thermoset urethane is poured into a mold..." In contrast, thermoplastic urethane is first melted and forced into an injection mold ... where it cools and solidifies. It can be reheated and reused again and again. Conversely, thermoset urethane cannot be reheated and reused, which makes thermoset urethane more expensive to work with. However, the expense is worthwhile because thermoset urethane offers superior performance qualities to its thermoplastic counterpart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy K Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 That's pretty cool, I love how they look from the front, but not too thrilled about the sideview. Looks too long, like a Jay Leno chin for the car. If it could be shortened 3" or so, it would look badass. FYI, the bumpers (and cladding) on these cars are made of thermoset urethane, not polyurethane. Polyurethane is a thermoplastic urethane. "Thermoset urethane is prepared by mixing several ingredients which react chemically, generating heat and forming a new material that's stronger than the sum of its parts. While still in liquid form, thermoset urethane is poured into a mold..." In contrast, thermoplastic urethane is first melted and forced into an injection mold ... where it cools and solidifies. It can be reheated and reused again and again. Conversely, thermoset urethane cannot be reheated and reused, which makes thermoset urethane more expensive to work with. However, the expense is worthwhile because thermoset urethane offers superior performance qualities to its thermoplastic counterpart. MASTER! TEACH ME THAT I MAY APPEASE US ALL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatGoSplat Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 MASTER! TEACH ME THAT I MAY APPEASE US ALL! The only thing I'm a master of is Google and bating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mra32 Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 I have made the molds (along with many other team members) for the racecar skins and let me tell you, its not fun. The way we do it, its messy, labor intensive and takes a minimum of like 3 guys, 4 should work the best. What you have to do is clean the surface really well (obv) and make sure there are no imperfections. If there are, you need to fix them now. Next we spray a releasing agent on it, its pretty much like a sort of wax. Its called PVA and i'm not certain what the initials stand for. Its light green. After a few coats of that, we put on a gelcoat. After everything is all set up, comes the mold making. Ideally you'd want to make the mold out of the same material you would be casting the piece out of. We use carbon fiber. Fiberglass behaves the same, but it inherently has different properties than carbon fiber, so if youre making a fiberglass bumper, then you'd want a fiberglass mold. The good thing is that fiberglass is cheap. When youre making your mold, you need to consider getting the piece out. The bumper would be a nice thing to mold, since it can bend easily, meaning you will have a much easier time getting it out. Your mold shouldn't really span 180 degrees in any plane, and in fact should be far from 180 degrees. What I mean by this is if you have a U shape, youre gonna have a hard time getting it off, but if you have a V shape, then your sides are far from being parallel (180 degrees), where the sides of the U are parallel. This should be sorta basic knowledge, but you have to consider this when you look at the bumper. Foglight cutouts will be difficult but not impossible. If you have something like 180 degrees or more in your casting, consider making a 2 piece mold. This requires that you set a device to let you fasten the 2 halves to each other in the junction. The fiberglass youre using to make the mold should be resin rich, you dont want it to be dry in any place, that will cause a weak spot (major headache) and the extra resin isnt an issue. You dont care if your mold weighs 100 pounds (it wont really). The resin is generally a 2 part mixture and tends to set up quickly, you can probably get slower setting resin, but measuring out the correct ratio is pretty important. You want to lay your mold pieces up realtively quickly and you might want to have a bunch of layers for mold rigidity. I find that rectangular strips work best, you dont have a huge sheet that youre trying to match to 6 different contours and getting folds all over the place. What I do to get the resin in the strips is lay it on a table with a protective covering and sorta squeegee it in with those yellow bondo scraper things. Pretty much a plastic putty knife without the handle. So everything sets up for a while (should require a certain temp like 160* for something like 6 hours to cure up) and youre ready to take the mold off your bumper. You wrestle and wrestle to get it off, it finally comes off and.....! There are like 45893898934 imperfections in it. Thats what bondo is for. Get it looking all nice and you are kinda ready to cast. Are you still with me or do you want to quit? Youre pretty close to the end. Casting the piece is similar to making the mold...only much harder. You need the PVA again The Fiberglass or whatever should be a little less resin rich. And its also a good idea to vacuum bag it. This requires sealing off the edge of the mold with a vacuum bag and attaching a vacuum pump to it. The more vacuum, the better. If you dont have enough vacuum, youre gonna be able to see the weave of the composite, even if you paint it. It takes alot of painting and sanding to get it to look smooth once it has set up without having the proper vacuum. Youre gonna need heat to set this stuff up properly too. Good luck getting this one out. That is an ebridged version of what you need to do for fiberglass/carbon fiber molds/bumpers. I have no clue on how to do urethane crap. And I am nowhere near being proficient in this to be giving advice. This is why all my descriptions of this process is sorta vague. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addicted To Boost Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 MASTER! TEACH ME THAT I MAY APPEASE US ALL! The only thing I'm a master of is Google and bating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpchris Posted January 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Ok, It will be up on ebay as soon as I find something to ship it in. Where can I get a box to put this thing in?? Already tried the xmas tree box Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z34duck Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 go to a car dealer or body shop they toss them out on a daily basis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatGoSplat Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 In the past when I've shipped big stuff like that, I had to cut up a bunch of boxes and tape them together to make a giant box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockfangd Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 In the past when I've shipped big stuff like that, I had to cut up a bunch of boxes and tape them together to make a giant box. lol whatever works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addicted To Boost Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 In the past when I've shipped big stuff like that, I had to cut up a bunch of boxes and tape them together to make a giant box. lol whatever works Thats what I did when I sold my valance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManicMechanic Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 That's how someone sent me a HUD dash for my CS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psych0matt Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 That's how someone sent me a HUD dash for my CS. I think I got mine from Bake IIRC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bake82 Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 That's how someone sent me a HUD dash for my CS. I think I got mine from Bake IIRC Yup, thats how I sent yours to..built one big box out of like 5 smaller ones! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K@m3l0t Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 That a nice bumper!! Those are very hard to find???? I know they don't make a lit of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intern8tion9l Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 they are more than hard to find. not many exist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bake82 Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Jay's right....I think Chris is going to make alot of money off this bumper......I have a feeling it's going to go for ALOT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slick Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 Thing is, I don't blame him. Don't take a low blow offer, try to get as much as possible. Same thing applies to Convertible STB's on ebay, Rob's OSV wheels, etc.... If they only made a few, and theres a ton of people that want it, you'll get the money it's worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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