Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic - Time to say good bye to her.

[scooter99]

Ok so I got quite a bit done today. Well not a ton done, but enough to make myself happy. Won't look like much cause there aren't many pics but for me, it's good progress.

So when I left off yesterday, I had gotten all the fleece on and was ready to get resin on. I had a goal today of getting the fleece resined, as well as a couple layers of glass on. Along with that it was a pretty busy day. We went to a western festival this morning, really just a parade we watched, then came home and worked in our front planter to get it cleaned up and ready for mulch, mowed the lawns, and then also did other things. SO my day was jam packed.

Let's get on with it.

First layer of resin went on the fleece. I had NO IDEA how much resin this would soak in. After all was said and done, I did 16oz increments and it took 4 mixes to get it done. Wow! Learn something new every day!

While I was pretty impressed with how all the other spots held on, I was not by the back wall. It did let go a little bit, as you can see here. But I semi expected that to happen. I'll have quite a bit of sanding to do to get this right. But I guess it's the nature of the beast.

So after asking around I decided to go ahead and sand a little bit of the resined fleece. Just to knock it down a bit, and because I'm not using real quality resin, 3M from lowes/home depot, it sometimes has a waxy feel to the top and won't adhere the second layer very well. So I thought why take chances on it. So I got out my Ridgid palm sander and some higher grit paper and went to town!

Got it all knocked down

Then grabbed the vacuum and got most of the dust up. I didn't take a pic, but I got a damp cloth and wiped it down to get whatever the vacuum did not.

Then time for some strength. Ran all over to get some chop mat but neither lowes or depot carry it, and wal mart does but just my luck they were out. Well cloth is better than nothing I guess, so I grabbed some of that.

Drew up some lines just for some guidance on where the center panel is at.

Then got to resining. I actually was pretty slow with this batch, and it started flashing on me. So I stopped and mixed some more. That's how far I got.

Finished it up. I got that back part too, but apparently I forgot to take pictures of it. I'll try to do that tomorrow. It's all set up now, and feels pretty good. So I may not put a second layer of cloth on like I planned to. At this point it's ready to pull and then I can work on it outside of the car. Smells pretty bad in there right now. I'll pull it in the morning and open the car up completely and let it vent out.

So that's the progress from today. More tomorrow, and I'll get those final pics too. Thanks for checking in!

[killallblue]

Nice but you don't lay any Matt down when doing the first coat?

Idk if it's just me but I always lay some down first coat seams to work out and gets the job done quicker

[Purplehaze]

Good job bro! Lookin good!

I'm with Killallblue, the only time I just use resin is if I am worried about something losing shape, or coming loose.
Otherwise you can start off putting down cloth of mat. Saves some time.
Of course you did say you were worried about the back coming lose...

Also, I'm still confused about what the overall plan is with the trunk? Will the amp rack have a beauty panel on top?

It does look good though! Keep it up!!!

[scooter99]

Nice but you don't lay any Matt down when doing the first coat?

Idk if it's just me but I always lay some down first coat seams to work out and gets the job done quicker

Do you mean, lay mat down over the fleece, and then resin both at the same time? This is the first time I've done anything this big, so I was kind of guessing as to how to do it.

Good job bro! Lookin good!

I'm with Killallblue, the only time I just use resin is if I am worried about something losing shape, or coming loose.

Otherwise you can start off putting down cloth of mat. Saves some time.

Of course you did say you were worried about the back coming lose...

Also, I'm still confused about what the overall plan is with the trunk? Will the amp rack have a beauty panel on top?

It does look good though! Keep it up!!!

Thanks. Yeah I was worried about that, kind of expected it, and if I'd have been thinking, I would've just made the back part longer and then clamped it to the trunk edge so it wouldn't have come down. But I wasn't thinking.

As far as the trunk goes, I'm doing this, to lay under the level of the humps on the trunk floor. There won't be any beauty panel on this over the amps and cables etc. I want to finish it out and cover it with something, although I've not decided what I'm going to use yet. I have some ideas, just not made the final decision. But then there will be a piece that covers the whole trunk floor and on that there will be an insert that covers the rack with plexi. May not make sense yet, but it will very soon.

On another note, the design I had that I wanted to do, isn't going to work out. I'm very disappointed about it, and while I'm not giving up just yet, I'm close. Still have some things to research and see if I can change it up in any way to make it work, but as of right now I'm probably going to change it up to a more basic design.

We'll see if I can get more done today or not. Have some house work to do, and I have a full truck in the back yard, and apparently it's supposed to rain here this week. So I may not get anymore work done on the car. We'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for checking in!

[Kyblack76]

Still looks like great work to me man.

And if you find a short cut, all the better...... soak that shit up (cuz ill be calling you all day long on the same shit)

[scooter99]

LOL, call away buddy!

[walwalka]

Sick build. I can't wait for it to be finished! Looks great! The amp rack is gonna turn out awesome.

[scooter99]

Yeah me too. Things are going to start taking shape after this amp rack is done. Thanks man.

Ok speaking of the amp rack. I went ahead and removed it yesterday. No time to sand it or do anything with it, but hopefully sometime this week. Not much to describe, so here are some pics.

This back wall is going to take some work to get looking right. But I kind of expected that as I said.

SO that's about it. Not much to show like I said. I may put one more layer of mat on, after I sand it, and that will be final. Then I'll sand it and smooth it out and get it ready for finishing. I have to figure out how to get cooling fans in here, and exhaust fans in here. But that will come later. I have ideas about that.

Thanks for checking it out.

[Chris Hammer]

Do you squeegie the flat areas out when you put down the cloth and resin? Advice coming from my neighbor/oldschool sufboard shaper/builder. Says when you are doing big flat areas like that you squeegie it out and it will come out stronger/less brittle from the resin. His words not mine, just wanted to know how you do it, because it looks good to me. I'm diggin your build.

[scooter99]

Nope. I honestly haven't ever done this before, so I'm just kind of learning on the fly. SO what he's saying then, is put the resin on, then like with a card or something hard edged, squeegee it out? I'm assuming that by doing that, you use less resin, and it will get more into the pores and spaces and voids of the material. Makes sense, and I appreciate the advise. I'll think about that next time I do something big like that. Thanks bro.

It's pretty good strength wise, in the middle. I think the wood helps alot. But the edges, like the lips, aren't that great. I may just put more mat on those. There really isn't any need. This isn't going to be coming in and out. When it's in, it'll be in. Although I can remove it, I probably won't.

Thanks for the positive words man.