glassing guru please help

[seth350 10+ year member]

I was going to get started on glassing the lower parts of my door panel tonight in my 95 Silvy but I have some questions before I get started and I could not find what I needed in the search so anyways...

I have glassing experience, I can work with it pretty good even tho ive only done 3 so far, only kept one tho b/c the others were not the way i wanted them. Heres a pic for ****s and giggles.

As for my door panel, just wondering if I will need to remove the carpet before I glass or can I glass over the carpet?

My methods thus far are to get the mdf rings in place and spray it down good with some spray adhesive and then cover it with an old t-shirt. Since I am only glassing over the carpeted area, I figured I could do the same with the panel and hopefully get the same results. Just need someone to point me in the right direction with some tips on how to glass my 6.5" mid and 4" mid in my door and keep it solid. Also, maybe a kick in the *** if they dont mind cause I have been putting this off for awhile. lol

Thanks in advance, any help is appreciated.

-Seth

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[seth350 10+ year member]

To give yall a better understanding and sorry for the shotty pic but I want to keep the line around the carpeted area and just have a black shiny smooth surface JUST where the carpet is, so that it looks seperate and still keeps a stock simple look. Not wanting to get real crazy with this, thats why Im wanting to keep it in the carpeted area and keeping the resin away from the rest of the door panel.

 

[WantedIsHere]

i wouldnt try to glass over the carpet... just remove it and rough up the hell out of the palstic... also maybe some drill holes through to let the resign sak through and some mat behind to sandwitch it... could be some decent weight your adding so i would make sure it never fell off specially on a door that gets opened and closed thousands of times....

 

[CrazedCat 10+ year member]

are you gonna take the door panel off first? If there is plastic behind that carpet, I'd remove it, drill a bunch of holes through the area to be glassed, then put some masking tape behind each hole (apply the tape with slack so it forms a small pouch). This way, when you turn it back over to apply the resin, excess resin will seep into the holes and into these "pouches" and basically form a knob behind the door when it hardens and will hold the entire fiberglass structure youre fabricating to the door panel.

 

[seth350 10+ year member]

Yes I did plan to drill holes to create a "resin rivet", and yes I was going to do this with the panel off. A local installer who does glassing work said it would be fine to resin over the carpet as long as i brushed the resin on in one motion. However, I was still reluctant to do that and then ruin a panel. I already have to buy a new drivers door panel b/c some idiot told me all I had to do was drill out the plastic welds and the bottom piece popped off. I didnt know any better, wish I would have done research now but oh well.

Is there a good way to getting the carpet off? I watched a buddy of mine taking his off and it just came off in itty bitty pieces at a time and it took him a good 2 days workin on it to get it all off.

Also, with the panel being plastic and being bendable. What precautions should I take so that in the event if the door panel does bend for some reason that the glass will not crack or come apart from the door? Or does the resin rivets keep that from happening?

 

[CrazedCat 10+ year member]

The resin rivets will keep it on there solid. Just make a bunch of them evenly spaced throughout the entire fabrication piece and you wont have any worries with rattling or coming off.

 

[seth350 10+ year member]

Alright, I think I can take it from here. Looks like I will have to put it off another day tho, its late and I have to be up at 6am to work.

Thanks for the help fellas, I really do appreciate it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

i would glass over the carpet. the resin soaking in the carpet would be super strong, and second if you remove the carpet your gonna have to "build up" that section quite a bit to make it even w/ the rest of the door.

save yourself some time.

 

[seth350 10+ year member]

i would glass over the carpet. the resin soaking in the carpet would be super strong, and second if you remove the carpet your gonna have to "build up" that section quite a bit to make it even w/ the rest of the door. save yourself some time.

I was thinking the same thing with building the doors up to match. Possibly glass over the carpet and drill holes as well for the rivets. Although I believe IIRC I read somewhere that especially with spray on adhesive, that resin will cause the adhesive to fail. However, Im sure GM used a better adhesive than spray on to keep the carpet held on so it may be ok.

 

[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

Well....the fiberglass resin might make the glue let go from the door panel. I think you should remove the carpet totally. behind it is hard plastic and you can sand that down smooth, clean with plastic cleaner, apply a plastic adhesion promoter, spray primer, sand, wipe with final clean, and paint it and it will cost alot less. Dupont makes all the products listed above as well as a spray can of clearcoat //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

Fiberglass gets HOT when curing.

 

[WantedIsHere]

the reason i wouldnt glass over the carpet is cause i have seen carpet on GM's door pannels and hatches come off... Its only on with a very small amount of spray adhesive... Make sure that the resin soaks allllll the way through and bonds to the plastic... i would personally just take the carpet off its easy and scuff the plastic... let us know however ya do it and how it works

 

[WantedIsHere]

Well....the fiberglass resin might make the glue let go from the door panel. I think you should remove the carpet totally. behind it is hard plastic and you can sand that down smooth

exactly my thoughts i just walked away after typing and hit the quick reply key 20 minutes after i wrote it... i agree with this guy that would be my main concern as i stated above as well

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

just drill some holes thru the carpet and put a few REAL rivets thru there, and then put some resin on //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

lol.

are you making a pod above the panel there? or you just gonna glass it to paint?

 

[seth350 10+ year member]

I will just strip the carpet to be safe. No need in doing all this work for it to just mess up. Thanks for the added help fellas //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

req-Ive already made my tweeter pod which is in my first pic. I have a ton of pics on my camera just have not got them on my comp yet. Step by step of everything I did. If you have ever seen a 95-98 year model door panel from a silverado, if you noticed there are metal grilles that cover the stock tweeter. I just took that mesh grille and cut a hole in it, bonded my mdf ring and glassed it. It snaps in just as it did when it was just a stock tweeter grille and matches up near perfect to my door. A lot of headaches and sanding and grinding went into it to get exactly what I wanted. I will be glassing a 6.5" mid bass and a 4" mid range into the lower door panel, which is why I was wanting to glass. They are Rainbow SLC 3ways //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif