Carbon doors for a De Tomaso Pantera.
A company had got the task to purify a Pantera.
Carbon doors seemed like a good idea.
They prepared a set for me. The edge between the glass and frame were sealed
and the hinges fastening is a quite complicated issue on these doors so they were slightly modified.
When I got the plugs they had a fresh layer of paint so they were ideal to make moulds from.
I made moulds but didn't take any pictures.
Only taping and fibre glassing. Not much to see.
The moulds turned out pretty okay. The fresh paint was maybe a bit too quick,
so I went over the moulds with some quick polishing for better release and finnish.
Then it was time to calculate the resin and cut the fibres.
Here all layers are in the mould (3 layers) and all consumables.
The company that ordered the doors from me made sure they really wanted them stiff.
Cote "Don't get into weight savings nazi ideas now" I made these parts with one layer of 210g
and two layers of 450g twill. With everything in the mould I put it all in a vacuum bag.
Thats to push the fibres firmly into all corners and to make sure excessive resin
is excluded from the cast. This technique is called wet layup.
For every door there is two moulds. I started with the inside since its more work with that part.
I started marking the holes with masking tape. Hole saw and angle grinder made the magic.
Fasteners for the hinges.
I welded stainless nuts to a stainless plate that I first glued in place
and then covered with a layer of 210g carbon.
Stainless and titan is basically the only steels that will handle the galvanic corrosion
that occurs inside carbon fibre. Regular steel will rust tremendously. I have learnt.
The outside "skins" turned out really nice straight out of the mould.
Hard to realize in pictures so I tested to make a mirror selfie.
Wicked.
I cut and grinded the insides to fit perfect in the outside casts.
Before I put the parts together I cut stripes of mattress that I surrounded with epoxy soaked carbon
and put in the door frame. Then I simply glued the parts together with Permabond pt326 and scraped my surroundings
for any heavy object that I could find to press the parts together during curing.
After curing I laminated the parts together with 10cm carbon tapes along all joints on the inside.
With that extra joint laminate cured all I had to do was to cut and finnish cut and grind the complete part.
Weight right under 5kg feels pretty good considering I made theese with 210+450+450g.
I normally would have gone for 210+450+210g which would have resulted in right above 4kg.
These doors got to be extremely stiff in every direction so everyone is happy, which is most important.
I got some pictures from the company while they mounted the doors.
Looks pretty awesome. Almost a shame to paint them but thats up to the end customer in this case.
