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Have you considered a series horizontal slits in the aci cap and then making thin tapered fiber fiberglass pieces to fill the spaces? The strips would be the widest where the fender needs to be moved the most. They'd be in the shape of a very tapered 'pennant'. The slits would extend all the way to the point the fender turns to meet the taillight panel.
Would that allow you to bring the aci 'fender' out to meet the car's fender?
Regards,
Alan
I could make the pennant shaped slices in the ACI clip to bring it out to the 79's fender but the place your arrow points to is the horizontal character line on the 79 that rises to the rear of the car. As I have to reshape that character line on the 79 anyway I think the best approach is to add fiberglass to the inside of the 79 fender at that point and then when level with the ACI fender glass the two together and then shave down the outside of the 79 fender at that point until it matches the ACI fender.
The chrome bumper cars also have that character line but it is horizontal to the ground rather than rising to the rear. Also on the 79 the character line is much sharper and it is much more rounded and less pronounced on the chrome bumper car.
So I'm going to make the character line on the 79 look like the one on the chrome bumper cars.
Each 'hurdle' you jump is one less than you need to jump to get to the finish line. That is what I have to keep telling myself BECAUSE there is a finite number of hurdles that you will encounter.
The chrome bumper cars also have that character line but it is horizontal to the ground rather than rising to the rear. Also on the 79 the character line is much sharper and it is much more rounded and less pronounced on the chrome bumper car.
So I'm going to make the character line on the 79 look like the one on the chrome bumper cars.
Knowing that this is the design direction you have chosen to go. As I wrote in a previous post...keep in mind that when you start to laminate these parts together is stages....that making a horizontal cut in the 79 quarter can aid in relieving some of its stress and allowing you to not to have to build it up so much on the backside of the panel as you mentioned. And as you know by now...using the wood that you are using now to hold thing together and FLUSH can be used to force the panels flush...and if the stress it too great...then grind some of the panel away to weaken it a bit...because you are going to cover it all with lamination anyway....the KEY here is trying to have your laminating surface be as FLUSH and flat as possible to make it EASIER on you.
Think if it like laminating on a flat sheet of wood....and then laminating on steps like you have in your house.. The steps would be much harder to get right than only a flat surface. And by 'flat'...that also includes surfaces with some contours in them as long as they are not to severe where they make a hard angle....thus...a 'step'
The upper and lower quarter panels are flush but at the middle there's some spread. I figure I'll glass together the upper and lower quarter panels first and then perhaps make some relief cuts in the middle of the 79 quarter panel to get things closer for the final joins.
Sounds like a plan..BUT...and I am sure you more than likely have considered this... I would advise doing one side and make sure your idea woks...before you do the other side the same way.
Man this is a great thread. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see what the final product looks like. While I have have never laid glass on a car, I have done tons of surfboards and it's pretty forgiving on final finish. If you need to just lay it thicker where you need it and thinner where you don't.
So I started glassing on the 70-73 ACI rear clip today - I'm so excited!
The passenger side didn't fit quite as well as the driver's side. I was planning on making a relief cut where the lower arrow was and pulling in the area between the arrows to flush with the 70-73 ACI rear clip but I got carried away when I was laying glass up on the inside of the car.
So, I just ended up going with the flow and thickening up the inside edge of the 79's passenger side upper quarter panel so I'll just be sanding down the outside of the 79 upper quarter panel to match the upper quarter panel on the 70-73 ACI rear clip.
I need to have the car ready to move by the weekend because hubby wants to do some things in the garage so next will be glassing on the outside of the join. I can't wait until tomorrow!
