fiberglass or steel?
 

Ok fella's, if you remember correctly i did make a center console out of vinyl for my car about 2-3 months ago, and to be honest, i'm not too thrilled with it. Everyone else seems to like it but me. So my new plan is to make a new one, hopefully this one will be more to my liking.

The question is, do i make a mold and fiberglass it or do it bend some steel and weld it?

Whats your guys' thoughts?

Most upholstry(spelling) guys use wood and aluminum...this is just what I see being done by the guys that are real good at it!

i made my first one out of MDF, but that was too flimsy i felt. Just didnt feel like it would last. Maybe its my imagination, or maybe i'm just too picky.

I've been told that Birch plywood works the best. The only reason i was considering fiberglass is because i do have some experience in it, and the console i have in mind has some odd shapes to it.

dry floral foam, bondo, make a mold, make a fiberglass part, cover in your choice of materials including paint..... when everybody with a camaro likes it, make some more parts and sell em off to re-coop your investment in time and materials.

using the floral foam works out killer, as it is really workable, finish coat it with body filler to the point of makin a mold...then its just like any other fiberglass part.

I really want to use floral foam... where can i find a piece big enough? to make a mold?

Check the crafts stores, michaels, stuff like that, they should have some fairly large pieces to play with. You can hotglue pieces together if they don't have one massive piece.

The biggest one i can find is pretty small. I've already been to several fabric stores.

i usually get it from a craft store...comes in "bricks" about 6x3x12", they also have a spray contact adheisive... that you can glue the bricks together with to get one big chunk... make sure to stuff some wood dowels in to help hold it together... as the glue works...but with the constant flexing from sculpting... the dowels do a better job untill you get a coat of filler over it to hold it all together.

btw........ when you start "sculpting" your gonna make a HUGE mess of green fuzz/foam chunks.... so make sure the shop vac is handy...especially if your doin it "in" the car

I have seen them made with wood, or fiberglass. My buddy builds them with Fiberglass and they are pretty amazing. I honestly don't know the process of building one. 69ZZ3 on the PT board has a cool console made from wood.

Floral foam is old news. 2 part Urethane foam can be glassed right over with no bonde or sealer, and can be poured / molding into a peliminary shape. Go to your local automotive parts store.

But with all that said, MDF is fine.

Thanks for the info, i just bought some floral foam and glued them together and used some wood "spikes" to hold them as the glue dries. I never realized how F'n expensive floral foam is!! YIKES!

I used to use a very similar material for molding rock climbing holds. i used to design them for a company in the twin cities as a side job. The only difference was this stuff was much easier to shape, you could literally use your index finger to polish it to what felt like 800 grit sand paper.

wish i knew where to get that stuff!!

hmmmm...... seems like it usually costs under $10 for 6 or so bricks. i dont remeber right off hand.... but i thought it was resonably priced.

i might look into the urethane foam that frank talked about next time a project like this comes up. that stuff sounds cool to work with.

dont forget pics........ we wanna see this console project from start to finish :)

Will do :)

we like to use expandable foam from ,aircraft spruce co. its called x-30 2 part and if goes a long way . remember it expands alot !!

If you build a buck out of MDF you can stretch T-shirt material over it to soften the lines. Once you get the look you want apply fiberglass resin to the material to stiffen it up and then glass over that. Works very well for making soft, smooth curves without a lot of effort.
Mark