LocostUSA.com

Nicely done, John (and John's nameless brother).

BTW, I'm a cruiser, not a racer, but I cruise in crappy weather and I really really like clamshells when it's wet out.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

Beautiful looking clamshells, John. Looks like your brother captured the right flow of line. Not easy to do. And your 'glass results look really fine.

Could you share a little more detail on your fender fab process. Once you created the "strip-planked canoe" shape it looks like you peanut buttered it with pink Bondo or something. Was this then sanded and sealed? Was it then glassed to create a female mode that the fender was laid up on, or?

Thanks!

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Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."
Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52

Thank you all for the kind words! I have to admit that I look at the result and think "That just looks great!" And then I think, "How in the world did we ever do that?" It's way out of league from my normal "Just make it work" kind of craftsmanship.

Tom - Since we needed to re-use the skeleton it was covered in plastic first, then the cardboard strips were stapled on over it. The peanut butter is actually West System epoxy mixed with the brown West filler. (I forget the name of the filler but there are only two I think - the soft and bulky brown stuff and the hard as a rock white colloidal silica.) When it cured we knocked the peaks off with a small surform (sp?) then sanded it smooth with successively finer grits of sandpaper. I think starting with around 220 and ending with 600. That was then waxed and sprayed with a silicone release agent. The silicone stuff is expensive but worth it. Use it liberally. Next was laying the fiberglass. We draped the glass over the form and brushed the resin (more West System) on. Three layers of glass gave us about 1/8" finished thickness. That was a fender then, just needing a bit trimming and sanding. (OK, a WHOLE LOT of sanding!)

After removing the fender from the skeleton, each station (or rib) was turned around and the whole process repeated for the other fender.

John

John, thanks for the process details. Would you have been able to use the "brown epoxy butter over cardboard" mold a second time to make another right or left fender before the stations were removed? Could the mold without ribs have been saved to make a future replacement fender, or was it too brittle once the stations were removed for flipping?

Always nice to see well lofted shapes come to life

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Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."
Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52

Tom,

The epoxy over the cardboard was too thin to reuse (it was torn up while extracting the fender) but that's because we only intended it for one use. You could easily build that up with a bit of glass before laying on the fender glass, but it would be more work and expense. It just depends on what your goal is. I do still have the entire skeleton just in case a replacement is required. I hope to never have to use it again and it stores easily disassembled.

John

Not part of aerodynamics but I lost a clamshell fender to a pylon this year at an autocross. It was a fast course and I hit the edge of the cone around 45mph. Took out the lower part of the clamshell. Going to cycle fenders next year.

Aero for clamshells look like this.

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Building a whole car from scratch is a 1,000 little tasks, done 1 task at a time, while thinking 10 tasks ahead, then redoing it anyway.
South Bend Region SCCA D-Modifed Class Autocross & Track-Day/TT. Chevrolet 1.4 L Turbo Ecotec Power


Link to my build log:
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3356