strengthen a hood

[Barry Donovan]

I replaced the hood on the tin can for..oh no..another tin can hood.

a 2inch ice storm can alter it forever.

I was looking at wraps..vinyl is as silly as acrylic or water based paint.

can metal be covered in fiberglass or carbon fiber?

I have no choices unless i mig weld american 18 gauge...the curves are so very subtle. Not likely gonna happen with my skills.

I got one into shape, good steel. Needs minimal..changes appearance all at once don't they.

any ideas?

[68scott385]

Can you reinforce the bracing on the bottom side of the hood?

[Barry Donovan]

Can you reinforce the bracing on the bottom side of the hood?

yes, that part is easy. I refer to the gauge and what hits it can take.

I did build the whole car, tripled, doubled quadrupled..the hood being wht it is does not match what I do.

I guess I resort to chemistry.
two part epoxy primer, the cars paint code is astounding. garnet and other weird real elements.
I'll stay patient. wanted this done 2 years ago.

ok here is something I'll try:



two part epoxy primer in a spray can. you have to activate it, shake, then spray. Clever.

my only fail is primer. Never has it correct. spanning 130F..frigid to boiling. Working around planes I know there is perfect stuff out there..but we don't get at it for the most part.

[Barry Donovan]

just the edges

digging through memory.. this car has 36 pounds of mig wire, more steel than I can remember. almost 6 years. My age seems to be dropping a bomb..enough quibbling.

The hoods gain a crease in front of driver side windsheild if a genuine subaru GL, the bodies were bad from factory.(that is why I kept it- as if they weren't going to be rare enough built properly by factory)

magic before my eyes today in the solstice sun as it worked it back to smooth as glass. My welds on the strong chassis can own a tin can hood apparently. two hinges and the middle point stretching it like a blanket. Did some sanding, realized wow. another chance for perfection, even at the seams.

It then occured to me.. I do not want to strengthen the middle, just the edges. The magic trick of conforming the way it did. good enough to respect why they are thin. that will be done with more epoxy stuff on the edges and cage perimeter. Very nice shape. was in a barn, a neighbor offered it to me. Strange odds. I needed that. A factory fender if offered would be allowed to go to scrap. All aftermarket are near twice the strength. they finally allowed that part to be manly enough. I only have one more to go there...the last 25 year old piece.

With poisons done this old ricer is back to a double take if to see it.

c/n: answered own question.

[SuperBuickGuy]

the short answer to your question "can fiberglass bonded to steel?" absolutely. make sure you give it a rough surface (the metal) for it to adhere to, and make certain that it's either sealed well with primer or no water can get between the fiberglass and steel.... bondo is also good for doing that.

[anotheridiot]

but dont add so much epoxy resin and bondo that you will need a prop rod to hold the hood up. That epoxy primer is good if you are gonna build a few mils at a time. I think they suggest 4 mils. As far as cold or hot, its really not the air temp you gotta worry about, its the metal temp. our shop is mid 50's in the winter, so we use an infrared light to heat up the steel before bondo or paint to get the metal to 70-80 degrees. And dont forget, when you activate that can, you gotta use that can. The mil spec epoxy primers we use on military coatings have a pot life of 4 hours.

ever think about welding the hood to the fenders and make it a tilt front end.

[SuperBuickGuy]

ever think about welding the hood to the fenders and make it a tilt front end.

tilt front Subaru, that'd be cool

[Barry Donovan]

no tilt front end ideas came to mind.


given the source of poison is gone, I am probably overthinking.

any petroleum based primer loves the nason basecoat mixed local. Freak basecoat very potent.

extreme II urethane.

[anotheridiot]

you use Xtreme? I have a gallon I ordered for the camaro a few years ago. I got a kit from a current ebay source that had paint, catalyst and reducer all separate, its a one coat system, the xtreme is a basecoat topcoat system and just had a quart of catalyst/reducer to cut 4:1. That stuff has been sticky for a week. Really any urethane is gonna be potent, its the amount of orange peel you end up with that sucks.

[Barry Donovan]

you use Xtreme? I have a gallon I ordered for the camaro a few years ago. I got a kit from a current ebay source that had paint, catalyst and reducer all separate, its a one coat system, the xtreme is a basecoat topcoat system and just had a quart of catalyst/reducer to cut 4:1. That stuff has been sticky for a week. Really any urethane is gonna be potent, its the amount of orange peel you end up with that sucks.

compared to factory asian..wow, that stuff is nice.

the choice of medium, fast or slow hardener is something a guru at the paint shop filled me in about. maine in the middle of summer likes medium. Been 3 years for some of the paint chores, I don't even have to wax.

nice stuff. instructions for chemistry to be correct is never leaping out at customers. That is the only problem I had at first, got it right the next time...the gun did not do so well, but oh its a tough paint job.

I learned the hood is peculiar, I made the original to be a brick, it broke its own front edge. I guess they got to move around the skin of the hood, too tight makes it a bad hood.

live and learn. I am keeping it the tin can gauge heat spreader they intended. Could be crazy as carbin fiber or even glass..at least it is steel I am humoring.

[anotheridiot]

The Xtreme is a midnite blue metallic. mix the paint and it ends up like a candy on the side of the mixing cup. All in one catalyst and reducer has me scratching my head. The paint is very transparent, very odd. the next we ordered was the silver metallic, it was from Trinity 1945, sprayed ok nice, deep color. the xtreme is a basecoat topcoat system, so maybe it wants to help the clear hold on, but if the solvents are not evaporated from the base its gonna bubble the clear anyway. Definitely will go with a one coat system next time we buy, but after 15 years of not painting a car, we are starting with a jeep just to get used to it again. nice flat sides, easy to sand and do again. Plus we are monkeying around with graphics. The "nameplates" on the 90 jeep were just stickers, so we are painting the silver first and masking the letters to keep the letters silver and the rest of the jeep midnite blue, well, after the rest of the attempt at graphics.

I painted a bunch of cameras for nasa with ppg that was really picky with reducers. so I get the idea of choosing, but when you get a quart can of reducer/hardener, what choice do you have other than use the base and try to use someone elses catalyst and reducer?

[Barry Donovan]

all in one is ridiculous if going for a real shine.

the shop local has a specific reducer, it worked out even in a tin can subaru.

Something I did not know I was waiting for is resonance of weld density, that take years on anyhting less than 18 gauge in origin.

Still very good...and my painting skill is horrible. This is just last year and the year before, maybe stuff changed since the 15 years when you painted.

the base coat for the buggy is a 5.6-5.8 voc. very potent. I love it.

72 hours is the final color..goes from blood read, to cinnamon with metal in it, then finally calms down after 3 whole days. The thing that makes me mad is urethane, extrem 2 did very good.
I even throw engine degreaser on it when my locale goes diarhea for 11.9 months out of 12.

As with all paint, the steel needs to be damn freakishly good, at 80kpsi welds or strong rails. the unibody can only go for long runs of very tough welds. nice and slow. I took 5 summers out, choosing sections, 1 each summer.

just this year is thought of beyond 180 grit sanding and a final. September will be 6 gone by. I so look forward to a real gauge on panels (american old of course)