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Once the mold is made, making a molding is fairly straightforward. Firstly the inner face of the mold must be cleaned thoroughly and then three coats of wax applied as in the earlier stages, followed by release agent. We then paint on a thick coat of white gel coat. We made the mold in a dark blue gel coat so that when we now apply the contrasting white gel coat, we can clearly see that we have no thin patches. We prefer all our panels to be white, but they could be any colour. Apologies for the quality of the photos here, but we were busy laying up fibreglass and most of these photos were scanned, hence the poor images, from our article in Practical Performance Car magazine, so thanks to Ed Hall for these pics. After 24 hours, we then apply three layers of fibreglass matt. Remember, we are now working on the INSIDE of the mold. The process is exactly the same as making the mold with matt, resin, brushes and a roller. Leave to cure for another 24 hours and here we have a finished rear quarter panel.
Now that we have a perfect finished panel, we can safely remove all the foam, chicken wire and filler from the car as we no longer need, or want it there any more. After all the care and attention this car has received over the months, we can now destroy a small part of it forever. I must point out that ALL the molds and panels were completed BEFORE we started to ‘remove’ them. With the finished panels trimmed and ready, we could now also trim back the remaining metal of the rear quarters and fit the new fibreglass ones.
