Console Finishing

I covered how I framed out the dash and console in an earlier post. Now its time to get the console in a finished looking state. I've decided to fiberglass over the wood and to smooth it out from there. I have never really fiberglassed anything of importance before so it was off to the Internet to learn some basics.

After a bunch of You-Tube videos and visiting various fiberglass product sites I settled on ordering 1.5 ounce cloth and a poly resin from FiberglassSite.com. They had about the best price per yard on the cloth and a decent resin cost. I paid less than $3/yrd on the cloth and about $37 for the resin (one gallon with hardner). Shipping was a whopping $33! Ouch.

I prepped the console by giving it a rough sanding. I rounded all the corners and edges as well. I also decided that I needed more room on the side of the console where the e-brake handle is. I did a bit of cutting and repairing to give me an indent where the handle will sit.

Then I just got with it and fiberglassed the entire box. I decided I wanted some thickness to the fiber so I went 3 layers. Overall it came out pretty good.

Once dried I found out how many bubbles and bad spots I had allowed to happen. I think I was in too big a hurry to get the cloth laid down and didn't prepare enough beforehand. I think when I go to do the dash I will cut out the cloth exactly as I want it to lay and then cut out two more exact pieces. Then I won't feel as rushed between layers trying to cut and mix the resin at the same time.

By the way, I found it best to mix 10oz of resin at the most at one time. The resin tried to set up on me in my paint can before I could get the resin on the cloth. More than 10oz was a waste since I ended up tossing out some of it anyway.

After letting the cloth dry for a couple days I started the finishing process. Out came my 4" and 6" Random Orbital (RO) sander, a small hand sander and my grinder with a 36 grit layered grinding disk. First step was to cut off the edges. I used a grinder with a cut off wheel for that. Then I started the real work.

With the grinder and the 36 grit layered grinding disk I wend over one side at a time. I was looking to eliminate all the bubbles (by grinding them into a hole) and to knock down as much of the high spots as possible. This isn't a very exact process. Just whack away at it and keep feeling for high spots and look for bubbles. You can see the grinder and grinding wheel I used to do this step - remember this is just a really rough outcome. Once I felt like it was fairly uniform it was time for the bondo.

I mixed up small batches (3 golf ball blobs) at a time. I quickly coated the side that I had just ground, doing my best to give a uniform, relatively thin coating.

After about 25 minutes dry time I roughed up the fresh bondo with a rasp and then got out my 6" RO sander and used 60 grit paper. I found this combination of sander and paper gave me a quick, smooth finish.

Of course there are many low sposts that didn't get quite enough bondo so it was back to applying bondo to the low spots. Here's a closeup of a bubble that needs to be ground out and finished with another coat of bondo.

After about three rounds of bondo/sanding it looked really great. The edges and rounded spots is where you need to pull out all your sanding tools. I used soft pads with various grits of paper to try and give myself a uniform edge and radius where needed. Take your time here since this will show up the most when a gloss paint is applied.

I continued the same process on all sides of the console. It came out pretty smooth. I put a little primer on it to help me see any spots that need a little more attention. Not bad for my first attempt at fiberglass.