When the owner of the only Bolwell SR6 in the world, badly damaged his pride and joy racing at a local raceway, he turned to Composite Studio to repair it back to its former glory. But after close inspection, we found that the body part could not be repaired because of previously bad workmanship and engine heat damage combined with the current damage. So a new engine cover had to be made. To do this we had to turn the badly damage rear body in to a pattern before we could manufacture the mould. This was not an easy task because some of the body parts were.
As you can see from the photos we had to build a framework inside to square up the rear body panel . With the new panel parts in place its starting to look like the origlnal body.
After the bodywork was finished, first we sprayed the surface with a high build primer and then sanded it back before applying the top coat.
From the photo on above left, you can see the black surface on the finished pattern. This is tooling gelcoat with an addative (Duratec clear high gloss ) added. This gives you a high gloss off the gun. The mould is split into 4 pieces for ease of manufacture. (Photo above right)
I manufactured the mould with a low shrink tooling system, as this allows the total mould laminate to be layed up all in one day and the mould can be demoulded the next day. This system is supplyed to me by Fgi.
The the mould was assembled ready for gelcoating.
Because of the high engine tempurature that is traped under the rear body work, the owner and I decided to use a resin that can handle 500°C. Fgi supplyed a vinylester resin that can handle the 500°C, also with a flame retardant additive added.Then the mould surface is cut and polished and finally released with a semi permanent mould release.
The photo on the left is the new rear panel just taken out of the mould.
Before the new part goes onto the chassis for fitting of the hinges for final assembly, the apertures required to clear the engine induction system are cut out.
The finished panel being test fitted on the hinging system before painting.
Fits perfectly, customer