Hand Brake Cover

[Guest sparks]

Hi everyone,

 

I have been wondering how to cover my hand brake to hide all the fitting hardware on the tunnel top.

 

I am currently on paternity leave so the early morning feeds and watching sky repeats of whealer dealers, salvage squad got me thinking on how to make a hand brake cover out of fibreglass and looking in the kitchen I saw the profile of an Asda 4 pint milk bottle. So I took it into the garage and cut it up and trial fitted it and I think it could work.

 

I was just going to lay the fibreglass over the "mould" apply resin etc and see how it turns out. At the moment not bothered about colour etc, just wondering if my idea would work

 

However I have know experience with fibreglass. I know I will have to coat the "mould" as it where, with a release agent and probably have to strengthen it as well.

 

Does anyone have any tips/advice etc (besides going for the snip!!)?

 

Cheers

 

Mark

[Guest Ratcatcher3D]

Hi

 

I just started fibre glassing areas of my motor and was making moulds out of aluminium and then covering it in duck tape, once fibre glass had dried it would just peal off very easily, I have to make a mould for my handbrake area covering fixings, if you take any photo could you post them so I have a better idea. P.S. fibre glass stinks

 

Cheers

[ibrooks]

Hi Mark,

I've got a gallon of resin and some matting sat doing nothing here from when I was altering the flip-front on my Mini (it was as cheap to buy in bulk as it was to buy the dinky little bottles/packs of matting aimed at car repair people).

 

If the milk bottle is the right shape then it's a fairly simple affair to glass over the top of that and it shouldn't need much re-inforcing but there are ways. The item you make will be rough on the outside though and need sanding/filler to get it smooth ready for covering/painting. If the milk-bottle is a little large you could glass inside it and your resulting cover should be fairly smooth on the outside. If using th bottle as a mouldit shouldn't be a big problem as far as release agents go as the resin won't stick to it very well and itshoulf flex easily enough to remove relatively easily afterwards.

 

Iain

[Guest sparks]

Hi Iain,

 

Any chance I can scrounge some of the resin and matting?

 

I hadn't thought of using the inside of the bottle. I was just going to lay the matting over it, but I think I will cut up another one, use a heat gun on it to take out some of the more curved edges and try and give myself some more room to work with on the inside.

 

Thanks

 

Mark

[Guest sparks]

Hi Ratcatcher3d,

 

I will post pictures, whether it works or not, someone out there may be able to modify or get a new idea from the pictures and point us both in the right direction.

 

Mark

[Guest robinj66]

You can always shape and stiffen the milk carton by using gaffer tape - saw them doing that on American Chopper (it doesn't really matter what the inside of the mould looks like)

[ibrooks]

No probs on pinchig some resin and matting. Some of the left-over resin from the first gallon is left over in Jam-jars and is gone a bit thick but still useable and cures fine with the catalyst. The remaining gallon hasn't ever been opened so we'll see what it's like.

 

Iain