Thread: A snorkel - kind a! Work in progress

It's bloody hard carving 3D shapes. At least I'm only creating polystyrene shavings at present. By the bucket load. No harm done yet, but I may need more xps. I know why I'm not a sculpturer.

Floral foan (the green stuff) is a great medium for making mould plugs.

Thought about that stuff. Will try it if the extruded polystyrene doesn't work out. The xps is easy enough to cut, sand and shape. It's just a complex shape. And because I have a fixed gap between the upper and lower sections it's very difficult make it from one piece. Because I want to have some stub pieces inside the polyethylene. Hence I'm making two sections to join in the middle.

My next problem will be fibreglassing off the car (on the bench) so it all lines up again when back on the car. May have to do some interim fibre glassing on the car for finishing off the car.

Thought about trying to get hold of a 3D clamp to hold the two sections in the installed orientation when they are removed. Heard body shops have suction cup type clamps. Can anybody offer another suggestion?

How about some kind of external jig to secure the 2 parts in relation to each other? Considering the current pieces are sacrificial you could screw them to an external frame and then once you've finished fibreglassing remove the frame and patch the holes ready to have a mould created.

No the current pieces weren't intended to be sacraficial. They are to be joined by fibreglassing a middle section and will form part of the finished article. I'm trying to short cut the job of making the whole thing out of fibreglass.

But even so, it'd be easy enough to join the two separate sections of polyethylene with a wooden C shaped length - screwed through the top and bottom section when removing from the vehicle for the actual fibreglassing. And then eventually plastic weld the holes created. The finished job will all be filled where needed, sanded and painted. I've become quite proficient at plastic welding/shapping/moulding - well at least in my little P38 world.

I just need to practice my mould shaping/carving skills for the fibreglassing. I'll get there - just need some practice.

You MUST do 2 mate. Don't waste all that work on just one. Pretty sure Fantom's brother has ability to do batches of fibreglass stuff.

Hi

Great progress mate, a real pity that approach only works for the GEMS models

I think i am going to have to go the outside route, not sure if i will hack and existing snorkel or go the way Keithy and RedAndy did with the stainless tubing

Steve

Another good thing about the gems hey! Gotta look for the positives.

Have decided I will need to breach/attach the two halves in order to fibreglass. Will knock up a welded steel bracket affair to achieve. Will show with pictures rather than a 1,000 words. This weekend hopefully, although err indoors has me decorating our sons bedroom.