How To Make Side FLARES For A VAN? Anyone Build Their Own?

[magentawave]

How will you shape a thin sheet of XPS to what you need, and so you can glass both sides? Or will you make a mold first to do the outer layer, and then add the foam to the inside with another layer of cloth?

Maybe see if you can find a place that sells Divinycell foam in smaller sheets.

I am still figuring it out, but I have two choices….

Make the flare out of foam sheet with 4 sides (top, bottom, right and left sides) and a face glued together and shaped with rounded edges, etc.. The foam will be part of the flare and serve to stiffen the structure and be built in insulation.
I don't know if I will glass both sides.

The other option is to make a mold out of MDF or foam (just like above), and then cover it with thin plastic sheet and glass over it. If I do that, then the mold will not be part of the actual flare.

Either way, it will look similar to the flare in the photo by Fiberine that’s in my first post in this thread.

I might have enough fiberglass cloth (6 oz) and enough mat. What do you think would be better? Mat or cloth or a combination of both? It seems like cloth might wrap around the corners better than mat but I’m not sure about that yet because probably 98% of everything I have ever glassed was done with cloth.

 

[ExpoMike]

The idea of a mold is great, if you want to make more than one set, otherwise it seems like a lot of extra work.

The foam/glass seems like a good idea, as you'll get the strength of glass with the insulation of foam. Downside is it's bulkier since you have the thickness of the foam. I would be really temped to do the "flat" area out of 1/2" foam to keep it thinner and use the thicker stuff around the edges where you can shape it and the thickness doesn't matter as much. I would definitely glass both sides but the inside a lighter cloth as it's more for finish and keeping inside stuff from denting the foam. I would use heavier glass on the outside.

As for glass, when I was looking at doing a "foamie" squaredrop camper, I found there is a product that combines both cloth and mat together. It seems like folks really were happy as you get the benefits of both but only had to work with one material. I already deleted the item off my Amazon list, so I cannot link to it.

 

[rruff]

I might have enough fiberglass cloth (6 oz) and enough mat. What do you think would be better? Mat or cloth or a combination of both?

Matt is low strength and low glass content (more epoxy), and a bit lighter. I only used it in the form of 1707 and 1808 biaxial. I think it's mainly used to build up thickness, and save a little money and weight.

Regarding using these as a surfboard mount... that seems like a bad idea. The boards will stick out a lot, and if one of them hits or gets caught on something, you'll have a lot of destruction.

The idea of a mold is great, if you want to make more than one set, otherwise it seems like a lot of extra work.

It's just a couple sheets of XPS with rounded edges. He can use the same one for both sides.