weathering "fiberglass"???

[JamesW]

What is the best way to weather a "fiberglass" body? I'm going to be working on a 67 Vette and wanted that old barn find look. Thanks in advance for any help.

[diymirage]

fiberglass doesnt rust but the paint on it does flake and the parts themselves can get cracked

so a good way to do it is to shoot a coat of primer

then put some tiny salt on there and shoot the paint

once the paint dries brush of the salt and it will look like the paint is chipped down to the primer

[JamesW]

I knew it didn't rust, that's why I was askin. LOL Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a shot.

[VW Dave]

Instead of primer, I'd say use a base coat of a cream/yellow; 'raw' fiberglass is about that color, and many times the worn/overbuffed areas are down that far.

Here's a worm's eye view of a 60's dune buggy body, showing the raw finish underneath. The red peeking through is the topside gel-coat color, but bear in mind that a factory-assembled car that received a paint job would not have gotten a colored gel finish..

[JamesW]

But even over the years the paint wouldn't typically chip all the way down to the bare fiberglass would it? Wouldn't it be more realistic to have the primer showing?

[VW Dave]

Wouldn't it be more realistic to have the primer showing?

Not necessarily - Over time, like any other plastic, fiberglass can become brittle if exposed to the elements....chipping right down to the base material is possible, especially if you are making a model look like a 40+-year old 'barn find' car.

I'd say try a little of both, and experiment. Not every inch of a vehicle endures time and mishandling the same, so it's possible that you can see both forms of decay/damage on one car.

[JamesW]

Cool, thanks for the tips. It's not like I can't strip it down and start over if need be. I'll try it all out.

[Art Anderson]

Not necessarily - Over time, like any other plastic, fiberglass can become brittle if exposed to the elements....chipping right down to the base material is possible, especially if you are making a model look like a 40+-year old 'barn find' car.

I'd say try a little of both, and experiment. Not every inch of a vehicle endures time and mishandling the same, so it's possible that you can see both forms of decay/damage on one car.

I've seen more than a few older Corvettes, barn finds, or just plain old cars out on the street. For starters, paint peeling and cracking was very common on early Vettes, even through the 1st generation Stingrays. The body had a tendency to flex, and when that happened, real stress was placed on the areas where the various body panels were joined together by fiberglassing the panels together. The acrylic lacquers used (nitrocellulose lacquer prior to the 1960's) cracked at these areas, and then as the adhesion of paint to fiberglas failed, the lacquer actually peeled up along those cracks, chipping away where the cracks in the paint intersected each other. Bear in mind that the primer was permanently adhered to the color layer--that's one of the characteristics of lacquers, each succeeding layer of lacquer penetrates, dissolves itself INTO the primer, and preceding coats of color, but the bond between the primer and the material surface isn't nearly that strong, the primer itself pulls away from (in this case) the fiberglass.

In severe cases, even the fiberglassed joints themselves would crack--fiberglass resin doesn't bond all that perfectly to previously cured fiberglass, so it can crack, and peel up a bit as well. This was particulary visible on roadsters, at the corners of the hood opening (where the front fenders were joined to the cowling, and at the rear corners of the interior opening. In addition, '53-'62 Corvettes were notorious for this cracking at the front corners of the hood opening as well.

Hope this helps a bit!

Art

[scouperacer]

Hope this helps, if not its atleast a good read. Should give you a couple ideas of what a 1:1 unloved Vette looks like.

http://jalopnik.com/5472253/peter-maxs-36-vintage-corvettes-the-full-story