I decided to be a ricer and cover my fender vents with Carbon Fiber. The Silver stands out a bit and I think the Carbon on black will look decent and subtle.
There’s a market for these Carbon Vents, but nobody makes them, so i decided to play with different molds and expand my experience and make a few extra bucks on the side by selling them. I ended up experimenting with two 2-part mix mold types. 1.) Silicon Rubber. 2.) Polyurethane Plastic.
Here is one of the side vents removed from the vehicle. I masked the vent holes with some vinyl tape to help remove the mold material when its time.
Silicon Rubber Mold:
Using MDF board and Clay I dammed off the areas that I don’t wish to fill with silicon
boxed everything in and sealed all the cracks with clay. Bucket of Silicon mixed in the foreground
Slowly filled the mold cavity, starting in the lowest spot possible…this prevents air bubbles from getting trapped and causing voids.
Filled and let cure for 24hrs
Removed all the sides, exposing the hardened rubber. Breaking the original part out of the rubber was a pain in the ass. I used a rubber that cures about as hard as tire rubber…so prying the part out was difficult. So i scrapped this mold because pulling cured CF pieces out was going to be just as difficult.
2.) Plastic Mold
I decided to mold only one leuvor at a time, because it was too hard to keep track of the Carbon Weave when molding both at the same time. Basically, the weave looked like shit when made as one piece.
Used clay to make temporary dams and hold the liquid plastic until it cures. Clay works well because it’s easy to mold and seal.
Had to weigh out equal parts by weight, Part A
Part B:
After a couple pours to build up about an 1/8" of thickness in the thinest spots:
Voila! The mold, still needs to be cleaned up a bit to remove the clay:
Dry fiber, getting ready to just wet with epoxy and lay in the mold. (reinforcement strips for rigidity to the left)
Once the epoxy has been mixed and applied, the CF if placed in the mold, paying attention to the weave. Here the picture shows the mold and original part sandwhiching the CF while the epoxy cures. I cut the original fender part and bought new ones on eBay for cheap.
About 10hrs later, the part is pulled from the mold. Needs some clean up work:
After dremeling the excess cloth and sanding the edges, just need to be clearcoated with auto urethane clear:
when at first you don’t suceed… All the bad pieces before i nailed down a good, consistant process.
Now that the proper molds are made, i can make a set of vents in about 2hrs, plus the 10hr wait time for the epoxy to cure.
I’ll update once they are installed.
