Well in between making hoods and bumpers I decided to see if I could make a fiberglass headlight bezel. Because there are features on the front and the back of the bezel you need, I had to make a mold of the front and a mold of the back. These are complete for one side at this point. They still need some finish work and trimming but before I waste a lot of time with that, I'm going to lay up the two parts when I layup a new hood this week. I'll pop them out of the mold, trim them and see how they look and see if they can be bonded together and look reasonably stock. Sort of a proof of concept. My main concerns are will the two pieces be too thick when the two parts are bonded together and will the towers on the back that the mounting screws go through cast properly. We'll see! I also laid up a glass radio bezel just for grins. I figured instead of buying a new reproduction bezel and then covering the front to mount a modern stereo or switches, I'd just start with a blank plate! It seemed to fit in the dash of my GS clone, but hasn't been drilled and mounted securely at this point.
Looks good Craig! I hope shipping of one of your hoods will be cheaper later this year when Covid hopefully disappear. A fiber GS body on a tube frame and a 682 Tomahawk with KB heads or TA Stage 6 would be flying!
I wouldn’t put too much faith in the price of shipping coming down. I’ve been selling these hoods now off and on for over six years and It seems the price is always between $200 and $250 90 percent of the time it doesn’t seem to matter how far it has to travel. I did just ship one from West Virginia to Missouri the other week and it was $198 and that is the first time I’ve seen one less than $200. I guess because I don’t do high-volume shipping I can’t get any kind of a real discount.
That would be a cool set up! The funny part is creating a mold of the body from say the firewall back wouldn’t be all that difficult because it’s big. The only pain you’d have to deal with is getting rid of the drip rails because I don’t know if you could leave those on and not have it lock the part in the mold. Something like the headlight bezels, fan shrouds and that are actually more of a pain logistic wise because of all the little intricate shapes. The body mold would probably be four or five pieces but again they’d be big. It really just be a matter of time and the money for the materials to build that. Of course I’d need a little bit more space. The space part of it may be changing in 2021, we’ll see
I'm sure you could pull it off Craig, it would be a newer version of this........... http://www.buickfunnycar.com/index.html
Yeah every time I’m out in the shop looking at that shell of a clone I have out there I’m thinking well I could put a parting line there and a parting line there. Need to get a few more hoods, bumpers and bezels (maybe) completed and start looking for a bigger shop!
Man it took a while to get the shop up to 60 degrees today! It was in the teens when I got up. I did get some gelcoat sprayed on the bezel molds and the next hood yesterday and laid the first layer of glass up on everything today. Man the bezels are a pain with all of the little holes and stuff for the mounting screws. I'm still curious if it's all going to pull out of the mold in one piece Monday!
You can do it Craig..My Maggott would be so cool with a set of them if you decide to make them. How sturdy is the radio piece? I was thinking that would be a great ide to use to install a newer style CD player and not have to cut up a stock one.
If you plan on installing your radio relatively soon, I’ll send you the one I’ve made, you can be my test subject instead of me waiting to get it set up in my clone GS one day
Would you be interested in making me a radio bezel like the one you made above? I would like to use it to mount some gauges.
Glass bezels will be a great idea for race cars, that is your clientele for these pieces.. metal bezels are heavy, and in the absolute wrong place to be heavy.. so keep them a light as possible, we are not that fussy about how it looks on the back side. Keep working, you will be making fenders and doors before you know it.. I would love to see someone give VFN some competition in that market. JW
