Disaster...

[baz-r]

i have found that grit faced tools for tiles are brillent for cutting grp (jigsaw and hole cutting tools).
minimal chipping of gel and i use blades in my jigsaw free hand without touching the shoe on the panel if i need to do cuts from the outside.
finally opening out to the finished line with a sanding drum or disc.

[tex]

you could of made a flared side panel instead - if you cut the panel out from where the scuttle lower front touches the side panel - chop out the engine bay sides then either replace with ally but make the rear edge further out from the body allowing air out - front sits in same place

like this

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index...._fromsearch__1

looks really cool - if you use ally you can leave it bare - looks pretty
or carbon -
or - - - grp? needs a mould which shouldnt be hard to do - maybe then sell them on to other haynes users? could be a little earner

[shh120m]

thats got me thinking, i could quite easily churn out a 'locost' version of these for the haynes, using prepreg backed with grp to keep costs down. Would certainly consider making some up if the demand was there. Would have to add a radius to the rear vent to keep them iva freindly.

[MarkB]

prepreg isn't locost though

[shh120m]

It is if youve got the facility to prepreg the twill granted its not cheap, but its certainly not mega bucks, thats why there would need to be interest first.

[MarkB]

So are we to see a full Roadster in carbon fibre soon then?

[chrisponter]

I'd certainly think about buying carbon bodywork when the time comes. Depending on price and weight.

Anyone know what the weight difference between GRP and Carbon Fibre is?

[shh120m]

theres two ways of doing it:

1 layer of carbon fibre twill matting at 120g/sm impregnated with epoxy is mega strong (at least as strong as 2 or 3 layers of polyester and chopstrand glass) and also very light for exanple a side panel would weigh about 500g. This is 'proper' structural carbon fibre like f1 parts etc. This is pretty expensive because epoxy is a pig to work with and because its so sticky and horrid the only way to get a perfect finish is to vac-bag everything, the tape and bags cost a fortune, and there is alot of wasted materials, another way is to use an autoclave which again pushes up the cost to the customer.

or

1 layer of carbon fibre twill impregnated with polyester, but due to the structural properties of polyester resin with cloth it would have to be backed up with chopped strand matting to give it some rigidity, so cosmetically its real carbon fibre, but its reinforced behind. This is the cheaper way to do it because no expensive epoxy is required, its alot easier to work with than epoxy and there is no need on most items for the vacumn pump. The weight works out about the same, if not a little lighter because you are replaceing say 1kg of gelcoat with the equivilent of 120-150gram of twill.

[MarkB]

You don't get waste or mess or even a nasty stink with vac bagging and it's far superior than hand lay up as it ensures an even spread of the resin.

[PorkChop]

I'd be up for flared side panels (but not necessarily in CF; I reckon FG would be fairly popular too).