So, I have been itching to try out the rigid fiberglass insulation that I have but I don't want to have a go at the door panels without trying something smaller. I want to have a raised and padded surface on my console so I thought that would be a good place to try it out. I would like the raised surface to echo the shape of the shifter surround on the Stealth console so I am going to use a similar shape. Here it is sketched out onto the console and the insulation:

The rigid insulation is 1" thick and as such is a little too thick, so I trimmed some off:

The round corners were then cut out and the square edges of the insulation were radius-ed on my belt sander:


I also cut some round pockets into the insulation for the 1/4" bolts that will hold the finished piece in place on the console. I did this with a forstner bit on my drill press:

Originally the top and bottom pieces were going to be separate and each was to have 4 bolts but I later decided to make it a single piece and will only use 4 bolts total. I then taped the console and started to glass the pieces in place. The rigid fiberglass insulation really soaks up the resin by the way.


I laid a single layer of mat and let it cure. This layer covers all the recesses I cut for the bolts. Once set, I recut 4 of the recesses:

[This message has been edited by Sourmug (edited 05-29-2007).]

Once the recesses were recut I applied 2 layers of mat to them so that these layers also overlapped the first layer of mat that I originally covered the insulation with.

The reason I did this is that I figured it would be stronger this way and make it more difficult for the bolts to pull out later.
When this had set I drilled out holes for the bolts in the center of the recesses and installed the bolts and washers. then filled the recesses with fiberglass reinforced filler to hold the bolts firmly in place:


I then applied more fiberglass mat after the filler had set and was sanded down.

Pulling the piece off was a bit of a challenge due to the bolts but there was enough flex in the piece to get it off. Here's how it looks after a quick trim:


I also filled the backside in at the base of the fiberglass just to reinforce it a bit as the final sanding will weaken the edge a bit:

Then the back edges were sanded and the face was sanded to remove any high spots and a layer of filler was applied:

[This message has been edited by Sourmug (edited 05-29-2007).]

Here's how it looks now after sanding:


It's more or less ready for the application of a thin layer of dense foam padding and the vinyl upolstery. Just waiting for the vinyl samples to arrive.

That's it for now.

Nolan

[This message has been edited by Sourmug (edited 05-29-2007).]

[This message has been edited by Sourmug (edited 11-12-2006).]