Discussion
i am sure you will get lots of help on here but I used to make moulds for GRP boats and I guess at the end of the day they are all the same? Its a lot easier if you have the original part to start with and make it as smooth and fair as possible as this will be your pattern you will take the mould from. It also needs to be stiffened up so that when you make the mould it does not bend or warp under the heat that can be produced. Once fair and smooth and preferably sprayed with a good hard paint you then put a good many coats of mould release wax on which is basically like a good car wax. You then lay up with resin and matt onto the original part untill you build up a fairly strong layer. Once dried you should?? (thats the hard part) be able to remove the new now female mould from your original part they do stick if it has tight corners or any sharp curves but the release wax should stop this occasionaly it will break a little peice off but that can be filled and faired later. Once you have your new female mould it will need reiforcing and edges added so that when you reproduce a new part there is excess glass so that it can be trimmed to be the exact size. Like all moulds the better the part you take your mould off the better all new panels you make will be. It takes a lot of sanding down to 1200 grit wet and dry and a lot of polishing to ensure a smooth perfect finish otherwise you end up filling fairing and spraying to get the same finish. Thats why mould work is so expensive its a skilled and time consuming job I know I have done many boats with thousands of hours work on each one. Have fun? Me I would buy an old one and do it up??
There are many ways to make something from scratch. Unfortunately they all require a great degree of artistic and creative talent! 
Check out my profile. I have a series of images showing the creation of a custom dash for my other halfs rally car. The obvious contenders are wood, chicken wire, expanding foam. Once you have the basic shape then use fibreglass to strenghten and then car body filler to smooth and refine the shape. refining this to the stage that you can take a mould from it is very slow process and is what makes low production parts so expensive. I have reproduced the lower dash pod and centre console of my chim in carbon fibre and have the moulds for both. But the amount of work that when into this would put the cost into £1000's if i were to get this done for me.
Check out my profile. I have a series of images showing the creation of a custom dash for my other halfs rally car. The obvious contenders are wood, chicken wire, expanding foam. Once you have the basic shape then use fibreglass to strenghten and then car body filler to smooth and refine the shape. refining this to the stage that you can take a mould from it is very slow process and is what makes low production parts so expensive. I have reproduced the lower dash pod and centre console of my chim in carbon fibre and have the moulds for both. But the amount of work that when into this would put the cost into £1000's if i were to get this done for me. Chimjunkie said:
There are many ways to make something from scratch. Unfortunately they all require a great degree of artistic and creative talent! Check out my profile. I have a series of images showing the creation of a custom dash for my other halfs rally car. The obvious contenders are wood, chicken wire, expanding foam. Once you have the basic shape then use fibreglass to strenghten and then car body filler to smooth and refine the shape. refining this to the stage that you can take a mould from it is very slow process and is what makes low production parts so expensive. I have reproduced the lower dash pod and centre console of my chim in carbon fibre and have the moulds for both. But the amount of work that when into this would put the cost into £1000's if i were to get this done for me.
Thanx jon Check out my profile. I have a series of images showing the creation of a custom dash for my other halfs rally car. The obvious contenders are wood, chicken wire, expanding foam. Once you have the basic shape then use fibreglass to strenghten and then car body filler to smooth and refine the shape. refining this to the stage that you can take a mould from it is very slow process and is what makes low production parts so expensive. I have reproduced the lower dash pod and centre console of my chim in carbon fibre and have the moulds for both. But the amount of work that when into this would put the cost into £1000's if i were to get this done for me. I wasn't thinking of doing anything as major as you've done,but
i suppose the process is the same whatever the size of the
project. Time to get my thinking cap on.(could take some time!)
John
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