Fiberglass center console

I made this, yay for me. Made it out of polyester fleece, matte and resin and Bondo. I primered it today. Need to fill a few pot holes and I'll finish it in satin black tomorrow.

It's going to provide a new home for my Mustang e-brake (if it works I'll report back with more info) and my T56 short shifter.

Funny to think that this could have been a blanky, in another life.

P.S. If you compare pic 2 to pic 3, you might catch what else I'm doing to the interior.

Cup holders? :rofl:

:idea: Maybe glass door trims?

Question.....on my car, me being tall at 6'5" and age 65, hate that combo BTW, the thing that happens to my rear glass console section is with having a cushion on top of it, I notice the front where the p/window buttons go, around the ebrake...tends to split from the top section to the sides, due to me leaning on it, I"m sure....

SO what did you do to brace the interior of your construction there or have you had any splitting problems on your OEM or replacement piece on that hardshell there....??

:search::drink:

saudivette said:

Cup holders? :rofl:

:idea: Maybe glass door trims?

Click to expand...

Look at the steering column.

mrvette said:

Question.....on my car, me being tall at 6'5" and age 65, hate that combo BTW, the thing that happens to my rear glass console section is with having a cushion on top of it, I notice the front where the p/window buttons go, around the ebrake...tends to split from the top section to the sides, due to me leaning on it, I"m sure....

SO what did you do to brace the interior of your construction there or have you had any splitting problems on your OEM or replacement piece on that hardshell there....??

:search::drink:

Click to expand...

6'5"?! Damn, I thought Bird was tall.

I've never had that splitting problem. I guess if you were to do this yourself and you were worried about the strength, you could add another layer or two of glass. No matter how big you are you're not going to crack 4 layers of glass by leaning on it. I doubt you'd even crack my two layers.

Looks good. If the entire cover lifts off with nothing attached to it except switches it might work well but the AC control could be a challenge.

enkeivette said:

mrvette said:

Question.....on my car, me being tall at 6'5" and age 65, hate that combo BTW, the thing that happens to my rear glass console section is with having a cushion on top of it, I notice the front where the p/window buttons go, around the ebrake...tends to split from the top section to the sides, due to me leaning on it, I"m sure....

SO what did you do to brace the interior of your construction there or have you had any splitting problems on your OEM or replacement piece on that hardshell there....??

:search::drink:

Click to expand...

6'5"?! Damn, I thought Bird was tall.

I've never had that splitting problem. I guess if you were to do this yourself and you were worried about the strength, you could add another layer or two of glass. No matter how big you are you're not going to crack 4 layers of glass by leaning on it. I doubt you'd even crack my two layers.

Click to expand...

This one I have is a cast piece I got at Carlisle Pa. show about 15 years ago as the stock one was already shattered a ton....

so question is, how to lay up something like that, how to make a mold off the one I got while it's still intact enough...

How did you lay up the one you got,? make a mold ?? cardboard mock up and glass over it a bunch...? how do you keep the resin from running/flowing outta the mold?? I did a 14' boat bottom decades ago, but it was basically flat, so no problem easy to control with a piece of cardboard until it gelled up...

:clobbered:

Laid it out over the stock console. Tried to do it with wax paper and matte, failed. Too wavy. Then I used polyester fleece as the base, sprayed everything with PAM first, and stapled the blanky to the cardboard. Then I laid a piece of matte on top.

Painted it, dropped it into place for fun. Still need to get that Mustang e-brake functioning before I can hook it up and screw it in.

Are you going to leave it painted or cover it with vinyl or leather or something?

Everyone is all about the vinyl or leather with this thing. No I'm going to leave it painted. I think it looks better that way. I was even thinking about painting it to match the exterior with the HOK I have left over. But I think satin black goes better with the rest of the interior.

Enk, from hard experiences, there is NO paint tough enough to withstand interior DRIVEN useage......

IMO, black vinyl....

IF I ever fix that POS I have, I want to stretch vinyl over it....

:gurney:

I was just thinking that it would be easy to scratch if it was painted...

Mustang e brake works! Spent the whole frakin day on it. Ug. You guys may have a point about the vinyl, if it gets messed up I'll pull it out and wrap it in some black vinyl.

One of those crimps on the e-brake busted off again. I think it was because the cable didn't pass through the end of the crimp. So, one more try with that freakin thing! The switch works though. I just grounded one of the two wires from the Mustang switch and hooked the other to the stock lead. Lights up