Day 96 and 97 - Dome cowl

I finally decided to stop being afraid of the dome cowl and actually finally make it.  I set out and bought a few more fiberglass supplies from TAP Plastic, then began cutting up pieces of cloth for the angled sections inside the mold.

I waxed the interior of the mold several times and let that sit for a bit. Then I applied a layer of PVA and let that dry.  Finally, I dusted a few coats of silicon mold release.  I wanted to make sure I had plenty of release layers between the mold and the final part!

After a little more time, I mixed up about 3oz of gel-coat and spread that on with a brush.  As it is getting colder, I added the maximum recommended amount for the catalyst.  I let the gel-coat sit for about three hours until it was only just slightly tacky, mostly dry.

I took some fiberglass strands that I pulled off of some woven cloth and placed that in the small trench in the top of the mold.  I was really afraid of having air bubbles in this little section, so I made sure to reinforce it as much as I could.

Then I placed the rest of the cur pieces in their positions, mixed up about 4oz of resin, and started brushing it on.  These cut sections didn't really overlap each other, so I then took some thin torn-up surfacing veil and applied some overlap.  Then I applied a heavy layer of overlapping chop mat on top of all that, with another 5oz of resin sealing it into place.  I rolled the mold all around in my hands while the resin started to set.  Once I no longer saw movement of the liquid, I sat it down and waited for it to cure.

The next day, I attempted to separate the part from the mold.  I have read many stories on how difficult it is to remove a cowl, but I didn't want to resort to cutting the mold into two pieces.  I placed putty wedges in similar to how I separated the dome from its mold.  On the bottom of the mold, however, I placed too many, and the cowl started to crack and split slightly.  Panicked, I removed all the wedges and decided upon a different strategy.

All around the mold, I put in one wedge, and then a second on top of it.  I then hammered in a wooden stir-stick in between the two wedges.  The stick always went in quite a bit further, so they were clearing the beveled edge of the cowl.  I repeated this this all around the cowl.

I poured in some boiling-hot water between the cowl and the mold, and eventually the two parts separated!  I quickly washed off the cowl and took a closer look at it.

The split in the middle was the most obvious.  It's going to need to be Bondo'd up a bit to conceal that.  But that's okay, because I also noticed that I had totally forgotten to place an indent in the mold for the recessed ID tag area!  When I Bondo this part, I'll be sure to include the ID tag indentation.  There was also an air pocket in one of the four corners; again, totally repairable.

I was especially happy with how well the detailing turned out on the top of the cowl!  This was the part I thought would be the most mangled.  But it's great!

I took my Dremel tool and cut/ground the hole in the cowl where the eventual eyestalk will be, and temporarily attached the cowl to the dome for a quick photo op!

Next steps: Repair the cowl and put the ID tag indentation in place, then sand the whole thing because all the ripply roughness of the mold transferred to the cowl.