Sintra and Alumalite
 

Any body have experience making splinters or rear diffuser with Sintra or alumalite?

Never made one.

I use plywood. Cheap.

I'll look these materials later, not familiar. But my brother made a fairly fancy front bumper in fiber glass for the snake, so the process of making and using a mold I'm familiar with. Was planning on doing a diffuser in carbon fiber for the fuck of it.

Fanboy.

If you're just going to make one for fun anyways how about making it for my Cobra?

Heavy and not resistant to moisture. Sintra and Alumalite are both cheap at about $200 for a 8' by 4' board, very light weight and easy to work. Alumalite is a plastic core sandwiched in aluminum. Sintra in expanded PVC. Sintra can be easily formed by using a heat gun. I think it will be easier to shape than wood. Then the base shape is set then you can vacuum bag it with CF or just glass over it. Larpers make their armer out of it.

Sounds similar to some plastics we have worked with plastics before ( like my very sophisticated instrument cluster . . .) Basically you can build a form then using the heat gun you can "mold" it around the form and using special plastic glues, can bond the various pieces together. Doesn't sound like what you want to do is terribly difficult, just time. Is what you want not available off the shelf?

Not all plywood is heavy and anything is moisture resistant with sealer.

Yes it's available but they are very expensive,I question their functionality,and I expect them both to be high wear items for a track car. So I'm looking for a product that is easy to produce, cheap, and durable. I think an alums lite panel will be easy to replace if damaged the hardest part would be making the brackets to mount it. The diffuser will be harder, but I think when the mold is made then making copies will be fast and cost effective.

The guys over at c-c use panel bond/alumabond or something like that. But most just use plywood. No crying over fucking up an $8 piece of wood.

What's c-c?

Corner-Carvers.

Aren't these things off the shelf at reasonable prices? Or do you want something you can regularly destroy and recreate for a hopefully lower price?

I watched a pro make some one off ground effects. They got some board insulation at HD and rough cut it and mounted it to the car, then cut and shaved it to what they wanted. After it was shaped it was removed and the glass guy made a mold then the part was made from the fiberglass mold. The hard part is the fasteners and the glass shrinks and they always had fitimet problems.

Thanks. This actually helps. I didn't know glass shrank. I really wanted a material to get the shape down that was easy to use. I only have really basic tools for shaping (a dremel).

Ben, The off the shelf units are either all show or $1600. One off and I'm out.

I took a look at corner carvers and they had some guys that have tried it before. I will go with the partical board for the splinter and make a glass over sheet metal diffuser.