Reed's '03 Tahoe: HAT, SQ/AQ, Singer, XS, SHCA, Cockbox, 80PRS

[Kevin Miller]

Looks good so far.

[reedal]

Showtime electronics is great

Appreciate the assistance and good C/S!

[reedal]

The newest addition to my power tools

Jigsaw attachment for my B&D matrix. Home Depot surprised me with the shipping time though, when I bought it the message said it wouldn't be available for store pickup until July 9th thru the 15th, and I just ordered it yesterday afternoon, already picked it up today. Kudos to Home Depot.

Now, for round 3 of making my door pods. Hopefully for the last time.... At least for a while. Just wasn't satisfied with the first two

[reedal]

So, it's been a while since I updated.

I've been working on my 3rd set of door pods. Version 1 was never seen, never used, they sucked. Version two, there are a couple pics of them, nothing after body filler. They were kind of a failure. Didn't like the shape, my bracing didn't hold up very well when I wrapped them but I tried working around that, and then finally they just didn't look good to me in the doors. No finished pics of those.

Here is version 3. I'm still not happy with them, so I'm going to do them again one day. Couple mistakes were made, but it's a learn as I go, to figure out what works best for me with the tools I have and the space I have to store my stuff, which isn't much at all.

Start of my protective layer for the door panels

Decided to test my jigsaw attachment by going a different route. Instead of making speaker rings, I decided to make a cutout of the factory grills. Here was mistake number one. I cutout the shapes before making the cutouts for the mids/tweets to mount to. I feel it might be easier that way next go-around.

And now for mistake number two. I decided to use the fiber glass cloth as my base. And it worked as I intended. The mistake I made was that for whatever reason I didn't put a second layer down. I meant to add the chop mat on top of the cloth to make it more rigid and add strength, because the cloth is kind of flimsy even after resin. So I added the chop mat after the cloth dried, which helped, but it wasn't the same as it should have been.

Here it is with the chop mat on top of the cloth. A lot of excess, I know.

Here are my cutouts. 1/2 inch MDF Home Depot gave me for free back in January.

My issue with these is that I could not freehand with my router bit for the dremel very well. As you can see. So next time around, I'll have a circle jig to use in conjunction with my router attachment I bought for the matrix drill

Now granted, with my money I've spent on these attachments, I could have had some that are probably a little better. But I figure why not give it a shot. Not that great compared to some of the other power tools of the same kinds that I have used in the past, but they get the job done... After recharging the battery a few times every day.

A perfect fit

On both sides, but I only show the one because it's a mirror image.

This, I kind of just decided to try out. Bought these cheap mdf rings a while back for $8 for the pair. So I thought I'd stick them on here for some bracing, and it did the job I wanted.

Glued the cutouts to the fiberglass, and wrapped them in some fleece

Resined up

A very rough body filler job. One I didn't use enough hardener cream, the other that's tinted reddish was actually just enough, it looks rough, but that one turned out best.

A little bit of sanding and test fitting. Here's my last mistake. When I body filled them, I went too far down with it, so I had to carefully cut away at the body filler to get the pods to fit in the stock location again. Tedious, it sucked, and lesson learned for next time. I think I'll put a protective layer over the panel and just body fill the pod while its attached to the panel.

Because of the body filler and my poor job at cutting it to get it to fit again, there are gaps :/

That's all I have for now. Not sure what I'll do with these for color. I know it'd be a waste, but it's better than looking like body filler. Next time, I've got a better idea of how to do it. Trial and error, trying to get an idea as to what others have done, etc. But I won't give up until I get it right.

Until next time.

[moredbs]

you can run some painters tape on the door panel, and fill in those little gaps with body filler. i also started off with bondo,(pita) but then i got some rage gold its so much easier to work with. well worth the money.. sanding and applying is much smoother. first time glassing can be rough, stay with it you'll get it down pat.

[reedal]

I'll try that out. I do want to try rage gold as well, but I figured I already have the bondo so I might as well use it.

[reedal]

you can run some painters tape on the door panel, and fill in those little gaps with body filler. i also started off with bondo,(pita) but then i got some rage gold its so much easier to work with. well worth the money.. sanding and applying is much smoother. first time glassing can be rough, stay with it you'll get it down pat.

Also, I probably won't try to fill the gap with these since I intend to just redo them anyways for cleaner cutouts for the speakers. But we'll see. Maybe I'll just cover them entirely in grill cloth and you won't be able to see how sloppy the cutouts are.

[DavidClark]

I think they look good man ! keep up the good work

[reedal]

I think they look good man ! keep up the good work

Appreciate it. I just want them to look damn near perfect. Take a whole lot of work, but I'll get it eventually

[jcarter1885]

I think they look good man ! keep up the good work

Appreciate it. I just want them to look damn near perfect. Take a whole lot of work, but I'll get it eventually

At least your making the attempt at it while Im sitting here like, "Fiberglass or not to fiberglass my doors?"