Fiberglass

[Keithicus]

We want to make a fiberglass shell for our robot, but we're totally clueless on how to work with it. Any suggestions? I've heard talk of laminating foam and making molds and such. How would you make a mold? We want to have something nice and curvy, so I think laminating things is kinda out of the question.

-Keith Sevcik
#920

[Bill Gold]

What my team has done in the past is use foam, or plastic tubes as molds, then put a layer of mylar or some other smooth material on top of the foam. Next step is to either cut the fiberglass w/ shears or just wet the fiberglass w/ epoxy and place it on the mylar. If you want the fiberglass to be smooth you should put another layer of mylar over the fiberglass/epoxy. Does that help?

[Bill Gold]

here's a link to some pics of my team messing w/ fiberglass...

http://www.seadawgs.com/Pictures/2002/2002fiber.htm

Hope this helps a little...