I'd like to recess the lights into the back of my car, using a couple of suitably sized plastic food containers as moulds.

The difficult thing is, I want to do it without having to spray the body. This means joining up the moulded recesses to the main tub using resin and gelcoat only.

My questions therefore are -

Has anyone who's tried this got any tips to pass on?

Is it possible to get a neat join at the radius between the body 'suface' and the light recess using only gelcoat? I don't mind if there is a small line at the join visible, as long as its neat!


Steve at Fury Sportscars showed me an example he was working on for a customer's car, where he had some plastic cups poking through holes in the tub, and was planning to gelcoat and lay-up around them from inside the tub. I didn't see the finished article but I'll ask for some photos.

Cheers,
Jek

The hot rod/custom car lot have been "Frenching" their lights for a long time, bet they have a clue how to help you out.

Cheers, I'll have a search on google.

'Frenching' - that was the word I was trying to remember!

quote:

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Originally posted by JekRankin
Cheers, I'll have a search on google.

'Frenching' - that was the word I was trying to remember!

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If you can get hold of the original gelcoat, you will have a seamless blend when done well (a lot of companies will keep small samples of each batch they use, so you maybe able to get the original from the manufacturer of the bodywork.

The technique would be to over build the gelcoat seam, so you can rub it back down and then polish it to remove any sign of the join. The tricky bit as you say will be the join - just take you time to fill/radius the edge with soft plastercine, which you can then wipe of the part then fill/fair as needed.

Check there will be enough space between the light fitting and tyre once done, keep looking at doing mine but suspect mine will be very close and you will see it when looking from the side of the car. You should be able to get some paint made up in a can by a decent paint supplied and just do it in resin/glass mat and spray after.

I did mine like this:





And when it was molded into the fender and painted it looked like this:
Its flush and sealed on the inside.



I have a lot more pictures of the process stacked at home.

That looks great svante
did you hot wire the pink foam around the wood then mold it to the arch

I tried hot wire but used the belt sander instead.
First i casted pots to fit onto the fender

Just a quick update to this thread in case anyone is thinking of trying the same. Here's my attempt at recessing my car's rear lights....






I didn't use a gel coat moulding in the end, though. The recesses are just a pair of plant pots. I think the effect works quite well, and its much easier to achieve a neat blend between the panel and the recess using this method. I still plan to mould some GRP to hold the plant pot in place and strengthen it a bit, but this won't be visible from the outside.





The only drawback is that the pots are marked as 'biodegradeable' - I wonder how long they'll last!?

Looks great are they just glued in?

Cheers, just now they're just a tight push fit in the holes, but since the pots are quite thin, I'm going to mould some GRP around the pot from the inside, then glue them to that.

Jek