31
1969-1970 Shelby GT350/500 / Re: None to be Found FRP Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic
« on: February 28, 2024, 09:26:06 AM »
The molds will sit outside and weather. In another 5 years they will end up in the trash. It's easy to create a hobby business making these parts. The most difficult/expensive part is generating the molds. It's not a lost art but very close to it. Someone needs to contact the owners of the molds and snap them up.
I have the molds for my 95 GT1/TA Mustang and get a couple calls a year to make someone a part. I sold all the ShoGun molds and chassis jig to Speedy Bill at Speedway Motors for his fiberglass museum.
In the other thread on FRP ( it seems to be locked/controlled) - There were two completely different process used to produce parts for cars. The low production pre 1968 Shelby American built cars got "hand laid" "wet" parts. There is an open one sided mold and that is sprayed with a gel coat to produce a smooth surface. On top of that glass mat is laid on by hand or sprayed on with what's called a chopper gun. With true hand laid cloth is placed over the mat and the surface is rolled to squeeze out the excess fiberglass resin. This results in an even thickness with minimal resin. The chopper gun method pulls fiberglass string off a roll into a gun where it's chopped up and sprayed out with the resin. This results in uneven surface and high resin content. Some places will add cloth over this but you don't end up with an even thickness. To make this mold you create a buck (what you want it to look like), wax it heavily, spray on tooling gelcoat (which is harder), and then lay on several coats of mat ending by creating a wood or steel stiffening framework to support the mold so the parts come out straight. Note: The original 66 side scoops used the same method as the 68 up cars.
In 1968 when Ford started building the cars with a Shelby Automotive nameplate they contracted AO Smith to manufacture and install the parts using what I'll call the Corvette method. The molds for this are very expensive. Made out of steel and 2 sided both the front and back surfaces have a mold. These are machined and polished to be as smooth as glass. Those molds are filled with a specific amount of for lack of a better description dry thermal plastic and fiberglass strands. The 2 halves are squeezed together and then baked which melts the plastic and produces a part that is very repeatable/accurate for mass production. If you had the original steel mold you could use them to produce a wet layup part but I'll wager those went into the Rouge furnaces in the late 70s.
The hood shown in the other thread would be assembled much like a steel hood with the outer skin and an inner structure glued together rather than with the edge folded over. There would be some steel either molded in or added for the hinge and latch bolts. The side scoops would be 1 piece with bosses for the fasteners molded in.
I have the molds for my 95 GT1/TA Mustang and get a couple calls a year to make someone a part. I sold all the ShoGun molds and chassis jig to Speedy Bill at Speedway Motors for his fiberglass museum.
In the other thread on FRP ( it seems to be locked/controlled) - There were two completely different process used to produce parts for cars. The low production pre 1968 Shelby American built cars got "hand laid" "wet" parts. There is an open one sided mold and that is sprayed with a gel coat to produce a smooth surface. On top of that glass mat is laid on by hand or sprayed on with what's called a chopper gun. With true hand laid cloth is placed over the mat and the surface is rolled to squeeze out the excess fiberglass resin. This results in an even thickness with minimal resin. The chopper gun method pulls fiberglass string off a roll into a gun where it's chopped up and sprayed out with the resin. This results in uneven surface and high resin content. Some places will add cloth over this but you don't end up with an even thickness. To make this mold you create a buck (what you want it to look like), wax it heavily, spray on tooling gelcoat (which is harder), and then lay on several coats of mat ending by creating a wood or steel stiffening framework to support the mold so the parts come out straight. Note: The original 66 side scoops used the same method as the 68 up cars.
In 1968 when Ford started building the cars with a Shelby Automotive nameplate they contracted AO Smith to manufacture and install the parts using what I'll call the Corvette method. The molds for this are very expensive. Made out of steel and 2 sided both the front and back surfaces have a mold. These are machined and polished to be as smooth as glass. Those molds are filled with a specific amount of for lack of a better description dry thermal plastic and fiberglass strands. The 2 halves are squeezed together and then baked which melts the plastic and produces a part that is very repeatable/accurate for mass production. If you had the original steel mold you could use them to produce a wet layup part but I'll wager those went into the Rouge furnaces in the late 70s.
The hood shown in the other thread would be assembled much like a steel hood with the outer skin and an inner structure glued together rather than with the edge folded over. There would be some steel either molded in or added for the hinge and latch bolts. The side scoops would be 1 piece with bosses for the fasteners molded in.